MY  LOVE  AND  I 

•ALICE  BROWN- 


ALVMNVS  BOOK  FYND 


AJ 


MY  LOVE   AND  I 


o. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK   .    BOSTON  •    CHICAGO 
DALLAS  •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON   •  BOMBAY  •   CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


MY  LOVE  AND  I 


BY 

ALICE  BROWN 

"MARTIN  REDFIELD" 


Kefo  gotk 

THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1914 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1912, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  September,  1912.    Reprinted 
November,  1914. 


. 

J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


MY  LOVE   AND   I 


MY  LOYB  AND  I 


I  AM  allowing  myself  the  free-handed  luxury  of 
writing  what  seems  to  me  the  truth.  So  far  as  facts 
go,  the  narrative  is  to  be  as  literal  as  I  can  make  it, 
and  that,  dealing  with  so  shifting  a  phenomenon  as  a 
life,  is  about  as  difficult  a  piece  of  work  as  you  could 
well  undertake.  For  the  minute  we  look  attentively 
at  our  own  actions,  the  great  temptations  begin  to 
sway  us.  Our  sympathies  with  our  own  doings  are 
magnets,  and  draw  the  mobile  human  shape  to  this 
side  and  that,  to  make  it  fit  some  model  of  the  meri- 
torious man.  We  are  seized  with  that  childish  and 
pathetic  desire  to  account  for  ourselves  to  our  own 
credit.  If  there  are  smudges  on  the  page,  it  would  be 
almost  beyond  human  fortitude  not  to  rub  them  out. 

So  far  also  as  emotions  go,  this  account  is  to  be  as 
exact  as  I  can  make  it.  And  here  it  may  be  I  shall 
not  get  so  far  out  of  the  way.  For  I  am  a  writer,  and 
if  ever  the  human  machine  is  cognizant  of  itself,  if 
ever  it  can  record  its  own  speed,  its  erratic  by-play  and 
recovery,  it  is  that  machine  made  up  of  varying  facili- 
ties which  a  writer  uses  in  his  work.  It  is  of  a  sort 

B  1 


2  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

that  records  unconsciously  the  scratches  of  time,  the 
wash  of  the  years,  in  a  way  comparable  only  to  the 
inscribing  of  palimpsests.  There  are  the  records,  one 
over  another.  Finally  the  brain  snatches  them  out 
and  knits  them  into  her  intent.  Some  are  even  used 
as  they  are,  in  what  stands  for  imaginative  work, 
but  all  are  likely  to  be  transmuted  by  some  magic 
deftness  of  the  mind,  and  made  to  serve.  This  talent, 
or  genius,  if  you  will,  in  the  few  unforgettable  cases, 
this  habit  of  hoarding  impressions  and  working  them 
over  like  precious  lumber,  is  of  a  delicate  sort  and 
really  feminine.  It  betrays  the  feminine  responsive- 
ness to  emotion,  the  feminine  absorption  in  detail. 
For  whereas  a  man  of  normal  temperament  may  be 
passionately  in  love,  for  example,  and  when  he  is  out 
of  love  retain  only  a  blurred  disorder  of  memory,  a 
man  with  the  equipment  to  achieve  the  written  word 
has  automatically  recorded  the  weather  of  his  passion, 
and  could  paint  you  the  cloud  wrack  of  it  on  a  day  of 
calm.  Therefore,  it  being  my  trade  to  write,  I  have 
some  hope  of  reproducing  the  complexion  of  my  past 
so  that  I  may  see  the  tale  is,  if  not  good,  at  least  faithful 
to  what  was. 

I  am  told  there  are  no  adequate  memoirs.  That 
may  very  well  be.  Our  confidences  become  instinc- 
tively a  game  of  excuse  and  accusation.  We  love 
ourselves  too  well,  or  we  are  at  least  too  deeply  grounded 
in  the  long  game  of  self-nurture  and  defence.  We 
kicked  over  the  traces,  did  we?  Well,  we  must  fish 


MY   LOVE  AND  I  3 

up  a  reason  for  it,  and  the  reason  cannot,  in  the  spec- 
tacular nature  of  things,  be  said  to  take  root  in  our 
own  meanness  or  self-love.  We  have  to  paint  our- 
selves for  exhibition  as  we  hope  God  is  painting  us  every 
day  for  presentation  to  his  angels  in  that  personal 
last  judgment  which,  to  our  ingenuous  egotism,  centres 
about  each  one  of  us.  That  being  so,  that  we  are 
creatures  bound  in  some  degree  to  seem  as  well  as  to 
be,  we  can  hardly  hope  for  more  than  partial  candor. 
But  we  may  do  what  we  can  to  draw  the  lines  straight 
enough  to  satisfy  our  inward  censor,  knowing  that, 
if  a  man  has  lived  without  vanity  (the  normal  degree 
of  it  necessary  to  prop  self-preservation  and  keep  his 
feathers  oiled  for  the  public  eye),  he  stands  more  than 
the  average  chance  at  painting  his  own  portrait  without 
flattery. 

I  was  born  in  New  England,  of  the  ordinary  self- 
respecting  farmer  and  his  wife,  and  I,  unlike  them, 
was  urged  from  the  beginning  of  conscious  life,  by  the 
desire  to  advance,  to  go  somewhere  that  is  not  here, 
to  know  something  that  is  not  this,  and  to  do  unproven 
things,  all  probably  included  in  the  phrase  my  mother 
used  when  she  presented  the  case  to  my  father :  "make 
something"  of  myself.  They  could  do  nothing  for  me 
beyond  keeping  me  well  fed  and  reasonably  obedient. 
They  had  summoned  me  into  the  world  with  no  hesi- 
tancy over  the  sort  of  creature  I  was  likely  to  prove, 
and  I  disconcerted  them,  not  because  I  was  so  clever 


4  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

or  so  pious  or  so  phenomenally  anything,  as  that  I 
wanted  things  I  did  not  have.  But  after  all,  these 
hungers  were  for  roads.  I  wanted  to  climb  into  roads 
and  travel  in  them.  The  school  reader  hinted  of  roads. 
There  were  singers,  it  implied  in  a  maddening  by-the- 
way  (it  should  either  have  said  more  or  nothing  at  all !), 
painters,  men  that  wrote  music  and  men  that  wrote 
poetry.  I  never  read  even  these  commonplaces  of 
invitation  without  a  foretokening  thrill.  I  think  per- 
haps it  was  the  sense  of  wonder  in  me,  the  urge  of  an 
unproven  self  that  wanted  it  knew  not  what.  And 
sometimes  I  read  poetry  of  a  sort  —  the  bigger  poets 
I  hardly  heard  of  until  I  grew  up  —  and  that  gave  me 
another  kind  of  thrill,  the  one  you  might  have  if  you 
came  upon  a  regiment  of  men,  taller  than  any  you  had 
ever  seen,  and  in  armor  perhaps,  marching.  You 
would  know  you  could  not  be  among  them  because 
you  were  not  tall  enough  and  you  had  no  armor,  but 
the  sight  would  be  tremendous  to  you.  I  can  see  now 
that  I  was  a  lonely  boy  because  of  this  desiring  things 
that  were  not.  I  was,  too,  by  the  grace  of  God  and  my 
mother's  kindness,  a  wholesome  one,  more  solitary  still 
in  the  brutal  curiosities  of  the  country  school.  I  was 
a  sinewy  whelp,  loving  all  the  things  outside  four 
walls,  and  I  grew  up  big-limbed  and  strong.  I  do  not 
think  I  loved  my  father  and  mother  very  much  until 
I  was  perhaps  fifteen,  and  then  my  father  died,  and  I 
found  myself  wondering  a  good  deal,  in  uncounselled 
work  about  the  farm,  as  to  what  kind  of  man  he  had 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  5 

been.  He  seemed,  in  dying,  to  have  cast  upon  me  a 
heavy  and  yet  a  worthy  task  of  being  something  more 
than  I  had  expected  to  be  while  I  was  yet  a  boy,  of  taking 
on  myself  the  necessity  of  standing  beside  my  mother 
very  stiff  and  strong.  And  then  I  began  to  see  that 
my  mother  was  dear  to  me  and  needed  kindness  in  her 
lack  of  bodily  courage,  and  that  gave  me  so  much 
tenderness  for  her  that  it  was  a  poignant  thing,  and  I 
loved  the  sight  of  her,  and  would  sometimes  touch  her 
dress  as  she  went  by  me,  with  a  shy  affection ;  but  that 
perhaps  she  never  knew.  I  had  thought  of  myself  as 
working  on  the  farm  in  the  summer  and  teaching 
school  in  the  winter,  to  put  myself  through  college  in 
the  way  the  older  generations  did.  It  all  seemed  per- 
fectly easy,  because  I  saw  no  end  to  my  rushing  vitality, 
the  force  with  which  the  blood  pelted  through  my  veins, 
and  I  knew  I  should  suffer  no  stone  in  my  track  to  turn 
me,  no  mountain  even.  I  had  found  that  men  were 
turned  back  sometimes  by  pebbles  too.  I  did  not 
know  then  that  some  pebbles  are  magnetized  to  an 
unexpected  power.  But  these  dreams,  if  dreams  they 
were,  so  did  they  clothe  themselves  in  the  bright  veil 
of  certainties,  had  to  yield.  With  my  father's  death 
I  was  suddenly  the  man  on  whom  the  course  of  life 
depended,  pushed  forward  by  life  itself  into  the  van 
of  homely  action.  Even  in  the  winter  I  was  too 
busy  foddering  the  cattle,  shovelling  paths,  cutting 
wood,  to  follow  the  routine  of  district  school  without 
long  breaks:  to  go  away  to  an  academy,  as  I  had  once 


6  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

intended,  was  impossible.  But  I  studied  long  and 
hard  in  the  winter  nights,  with  a  futile  selection  of 
books  packed  away  in  the  house.  I  studied  algebra, 
and  knew  Gibbon  almost  by  heart,  " Paradise  Lost," 
too,  and  "  Pilgrim's  Progress."  Still  hi  the  midst 
of  my  young  despair,  I  had  an  idea  I  should  at- 
tain, that  I  should  sometime  sight  the  beginning  of 
those  foreordained  roads  that  lead  to  unseen  goals, 
lands  that  are  not  so  much  happiness,  perhaps,  as 
broader  spaces,  free  air,  and  the  chance  to  find  more 
roads,  and  these  interminable.  Sometimes  I  felt  an 
unreasoning  anger  against  the  barriers  that  hemmed 
me  in.  This  was  not  because  I  thought  for  a  moment 
of  stepping  out  of  my  place  as  my  mother's  man,  but 
because  the  odds  against  my  getting  learning  and  ad- 
vancement grew  so  horribly  great.  And  then  there 
came  the  February  morning  when  my  mother  could 
not  get  up  from  her  bed,  and  the  next  morning  when 
she  died  and  left  me  groping  in  a  world  forlorn.  I  had 
not  relinquished  my  ambitions,  if  ambitions  they  were, 
this  quest  of  the  unknown  road,  but  I  suddenly  saw  they 
had  no  point.  The  little  warm  glow  that  kept  the 
heart  of  them  beating  was  gone.  I  came  flat  up  against 
a  hundred  easements  I  had  promised  myself  to  buy  for 
my  mother  when  I  at  last  made  good.  I  had  meant 
to  take  her  away  from  the  farm,  and  settle  her  in  a  little 
suburban  house  —  how  philistine  my  choice  would  have 
been  then  I  know  well  —  a  little  house,  because  she 
had  always  done  her  own  work,  and  would  not  have  been 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  7 

at  ease  with  hired  service,  a  house  where  there  was  yard 
enough  to  hang  the  clothes  and  make  a  garden,  but  it- 
self chiefly  to  be  recommended  for  its  sunny  kitchen  and 
running  water  and  all  the  other  aids  to  comfortable 
tasks.  She  was  also  to  have  a  black  silk  dress  and  a 
cameo  pin  —  my  tastes  were  regulated  by  the  prosper- 
ous in  our  surroundings  —  and  now  she  had  gone  in  a 
kind  of  cruel  haste,  and  I  had  hardly  money  enough  to 
buy  her  coffin.  I  remember  the  one  small  comfort  I  got 
at  the  time  was  from  Jessie  Brown,  the  minister's 
daughter,  because  she  cried  hard  at  my  mother's  funeral, 
and  the  next  day  came  over  while  I  was  eating  the 
remains  of  the  funeral  dinner  with  a  dry  mouth  and 
wondering  if  all  food  was  going  to  taste  like  this  for- 
ever now  that  mother  was  not  here  —  Jessie  arrived 
running,  the  sun  on  her  thin  freckled  face,  and  eager- 
ness in  her  eyes,  to  say  her  mother  wanted  me  to  come 
over  to  dinner.  There  was  apple  pudding,  and  it  was 
real  good.  I  shook  my  head.  I  found  it  hard  to  speak. 
And  Jessie  lingered  a  few  minutes  and  seemed  about  to 
cry.  But  though  I  was  grateful  to  her  for  crying  as  she 
had  yesterday  —  it  seemed  a  tribute  to  my  mother  to 
find  the  minister's  daughter  set  her  at  such  worth  - 
I  felt  I  could  not  bear  it  to-day.  So  I  told  her  the  apple 
pudding  would  be  cold,  and  she  suddenly  stopped  look- 
ing sorry  and  said  I  was  a  horrid  boy,  and  went  home. 

Now  I  had  my  life  before  me,  and  kindly  farmers 
came  to  tell  me  what  to  do  with  it.  But  what  I  did 
do  was  to  pack  a  queer  old  bag  with  my  clothes  and 


8  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

mother's  little  thin  teaspoons,  and  tell  uncle  Hardy 
he  might  carry  on  the  farm  and  give  me  whatever  my 
half  of  it  would  bring  in.  And  I  took  train  for  Boston, 
with  exactly  seven  dollars  in  my  pocket,  and  that  was 
borrowed.  Uncle  Hardy  had  just  that  amount  in  his 
old  desk,  and  he  gave  it  to  me  as  soon  as  I  asked  him. 
And  when  I  found  out  that  seven  dollars  would  last 
me,  and  that  by  living  on  bread  alone,  about  two 
weeks  in  Boston,  I  shipped  on  board  a  vessel  bound 
for  the  West  Indies,  and  after  being  well  mauled  and 
inducted  into  the  use  the  world  has  for  an  ignorant 
young  lubber  with  magnificent  muscles  trained  to 
nothing,  I  left  her  at  Trinidad,  and  there,  after  the 
Fair  Weather  had  sailed,  I  got  work  at  the  stables  of 
the  Hotel  Tivoli,  and  in  this  I  continued  some  months 
until  a  good  man  got  hold  of  me.  This  was  Egerton 
Sims,  an  Englishman  who  had  been  a  sport  in  his  day, 
and  was  a  scholar  as  well.  But  now  he  found  himself 
cruelly  crippled  by  a  misfortune  that  was  not  so  much 
a  fear  with  him  as  something  he  had  to  provide 
against,  as  you  would  take  a  stout  stick  with  you  if 
you  were  going  to  encounter  a  hostile  beast.  He  had 
attacks  of  an  excruciating  pain  of  the  heart,  and  for 
that  reason  he  was  disinclined  to  be  alone  in  the  open 
and  far  from  help.  Yet  it  chafed  him  to  assume  a 
keeper,  a  man  of  inferior  parts  who  would  obtrude 
upon  him  an  unsympathetic  presence.  And  one  day 
it  was  I  who  brought  his  horse  to  him,  and  he  made 
some  remark  about  the  girth,  and  I  answered  him  in 


MY  LOVE  AND   I  9 

perhaps  too  free  a  way  for  custom:  for,  being  New 
England  bred,  I  could  never  get  away  from  New 
England's  old  ideas.  He  looked  at  me  suddenly  and 
sharply.  My  tone  was  respectful  enough,  I  am  sure, 
for  I  had  no  pleasure  in  holding  myself  above  my  busi- 
ness; but  that  all  men  are,  so  far  as  their  rights  go, 
equal,  ran  with  my  blood.  He  asked  me  my  name,  and 
I  told  it,  — my  full  name,  Martin  Redfield.  And  the  next 
day  some  one  else  was  sent  up  with  his  horse,  and  he 
asked  for  me.  And  then  he  arranged  to  have  "the 
boy  Redfield"  ride  with  him.  At  first  it  was  a  little 
behind  him,  very  properly,  and  then,  as  he  questioned 
me,  I  had  to  edge  nearer,  and  finally  we  rode  abreast. 
I  rode  like  a  lout,  though  I  could  manage  a  horse,  being 
both  strong  and  having  a  delicate  touch  and  some 
general  sense  of  an  animal's  nature.  But  he  set  him- 
self to  teach  me,  with  great  patience,  to  ride  like  a 
gentleman.  It  was  not  long  before  he  succeeded  to  a 
nicety,  and  then  he  was  pleased,  and  regarded  me  with 
an  especial  kindness,  as  we  look  upon  our  own  work. 
He  was  a  very  handsome  man,  so  I  heard  the  kitchen 
wenches  say,  but  I  should  have  known  myself  that  he 
satisfied  to  the  full  every  idea  of  what  a  gentleman 
should  be.  He  had  a  distinguished  profile,  he  was 
iron-gray,  and  his  bearing  I  coveted  for  myself,  even 
if  I  must  have  taken  his  years  with  it.  (Gladly  would 
I  have  done  that,  for  when  we  are  young  and  malcon- 
tent we  have  no  hesitation  in  lightly  bidding  for  the 
state  of  the  old.  To  us  it  is  no  more  than  a  nearness 


10  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

to  a  dramatic  end.)  For  a  time  he  asked  me  no  further 
question  than  where  I  was  born,  how  old  I  was,  and  why 
I  had  come  to  Trinidad.  He  himself  had  come,  he 
said,  because  he  had  been  ordered  to  a  tropical  climate, 
and  this,  being  under  English  rule,  suited  him,  or,  as 
I  afterwards  interpreted,  left  him  less  forlorn.  But 
one  day  he  asked  how  I  would  like  to  leave  the  stables 
and  become  his  personal  attendant. 

"  A  valet?"  Tasked. 

I  pronounced  the  word  according  to  my  own  ideas, 
but  he  gave  no  sign  of  noticing,  since  we  were  as  yet 
master  and  pupil  in  the  matter  of  horsemanship  only. 
Yes,  he  supposed  it  was  being  a  valet,  if  it  had  to  be 
defined.  I  shook  my  head.  In  those  days  I  set  up 
queer  distinctions.  I  had  no  bones  about  being  stable 
boy,  but  I  fancied  personal  attendance  on  even  so  ex- 
celling a  personage  as  this  ill  fitted  what  was  before  me. 
He  pressed  the  question.  Why  didn't  I  want  to  be 
a  "man"?  And  it  came  out  that  I  didn't  know,  but 
that  I  vaguely  felt  it  wouldn't  quite  do.  It  seemed 
to  block  the  road  to  somewhere.  And  then  it  was  that 
he  asked  me  bluntly:— 

"Well,  what  are  you  going  to  do  ?" 

And  I,  like  a  simple  ass,  said  I  was  going  to  write 
books.  We  were  near  home  then  and  he  reined  in  his 
horse  a  little  and  glanced  round  at  me. 

"So!"  he  said  gravely. 

I  must  have  looked  a  softie,  with  nothing  apparent 
of  power  about  me  but  the  strength  of  my  arms  and  legs. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  11 

The  cook  had  told  me  only  that  morning  that  I  had 
handsome  eyes.  I  hated  her  for  it.  It  was  almost  as 
if  she  had  laid  hands  on  me,  and  I  hurried  out  of  the 
kitchen  at  an  undignified  trot,  hearing  all  the  way  the 
repetition,  — 

"  Handsome  brown  eyes,  Redfield!" 

Probably,  for  I  had  had  no  hardening  yet,  save  that 
of  grief,  they  might  have  looked  like  the  soft  eyes  of 
an  animal  still  wild,  sometimes  with  fear  of  civilization 
in  them,  sometimes  beseechment  that  I  might  not  be 
caught.  I  have  often  thought  of  myself  since  as  I 
must  have  seemed  to  Egerton  Sims :  what  a  mush  of 
youth  and  asininity,  all  puppydom,  and  he  hardened 
to  the  game  of  life,  up  to  its  tricks  every  time,  and  him- 
self playing  fair  if  his  adversary  were  the  devil.  He 
looked  me  over  as  if  he  were  going  to  buy  me,  looked 
even  down  to  the  horse's  legs  as  if  he  might  buy  him. 
A  black  woman  with  a  parrot  on  her  wrist  got  in  the  way, 
in  her  eagerness  to  sell  the  bunch  of  feathered  gold  and 
scarlet,  and  while  we  drew  aside  for  her  some  coolies 
went  past,  all  a  dusk  and  silence  of  the  East.  I  often 
think  of  the  picture  because  it  was  the  background 
when  my  life  was  mapped.  Then  the  little  coil  of  cir- 
cumstance untangled,  and  we  rode  on.  Egerton  Sims 
said  no  more  then,  but  that  night  he  sent  for  me  to 
come  to  his  room  where  he  sat  smoking.  I  remember 
now  that  he  asked  me  to  sit  down,  and  that  previously, 
when  I  had  been  summoned  to  take  orders  about  the 
horses,  I  had  been  allowed  to  stand,  very  appropriately 


12  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

though  awkwardly,  for  I  was  at  that  time  chiefly  at 
ease  when  I  was  using  my  hands  in  the  open.  I  must 
have  looked  a  lout  to  him,  but  he  asked  me  with  a 
kind  consideration  I  have  always  loved  him  for,  and 
very  gravely,  - 

"How  would  you  like  to  be  my  private  secretary?" 

To  my  everlasting  discredit,  I  have  to  remember  that 
this  didn't  seem  to  me  in  the  least  preposterous,  as  it 
was.  It  only  seemed  unfit,  and  I  summed  up  my 
colossal  disabilities  quite  simply  by  saying,— 

"I  don't  write  a  very  good  hand,  sir." 

Perhaps  a  twinkle  did  come  into  his  eyes.  I  hope 
so,  I  am  sure.  I  hope  he  had  the  reward  of  humor  at 
my  young  expense. 

"Let  us  see,"  he  said. 

He  drew  forth  paper  and  pen,  and  asked  me  to  copy 
an  extract  from  a  book.  I  began  to  copy,  and  perhaps 
he  watched  me.  But  I  did  not  think  of  that  as  material. 
I  had  been  caught  by  the  rhythm  of  what  I  was  reading, 
and  as  I  wrote  on,  I  forgot  him  altogether,  and  won- 
dered where  I  could  lay  my  hands  again  on  a  book  like 
that.  It  was  the  "Golden  Treasury,"  and  the  poem 
he  had  given  me  to  copy  was  one  of  Herrick's. 

"Well,  Martin,"  said  he  kindly,  and  I  came  out  of 
my  discoverer's  dream  and  gave  him  my  script. 

I  had  been  taught  to  write  by  an  old  system  in  country 
school,  whereby  the  writer  moves  the  arm  in  arcs  of 
circles,  and  has  for  pattern  the  be-all  and  end-all  of  am- 
bition, one  who  can  draw  with  unconsidered  strokes  a 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  13 

bird  of  paradise,  tail  and  all,  as  easy  as  the  unproficient 
can  write  John.  I  had  set  myself  this  task,  but  my 
hands,  not  in  those  days  obedient  to  ordered  work  with 
so  fine  a  tool  as  the  pen,  essayed  flights  of  then-  own, 
and  it  was  a  sorry  chart  I  handed  him.  But  he  looked 
at  it,  laid  it  aside,  as  no  worse  than  he  had  expected,  and 
said  he  thought  he  could  find  a  use  for  me.  He  offered 
me  a  cigar,  as  if  to  show  me  we  were  in  the  same  room 
of  the  house  of  life.  But  I  shook  my  head.  I  admired 
him  very  much,  and  perhaps  it  looked  to  me  as  if  we 
were  going  too  fast.  He  seemed  well  enough  satisfied 
with  that,  and  as  he  smoked,  told  me  what  money  I 
should  have.  This  left  me  staring.  I  didn't  know 
unlicked  cubs  ever  had  so  much  for  coming  out  of  a 
stable  and  into  a  room  with  books  of  poetry  in  it.  That 
was  all,  he  said.  He  would  speak  to  the  Tivoli  man, 
and  no  doubt  it  could  be  satisfactorily  arranged.  He 
would  see  me  again  to-morrow. 

II 

TO-MORROW  came,  and  he  did  speak,  to  the  end  that 
I  was  given  an  outfit  of  new  clothes,  on  account  of 
which  I  insisted  that  my  money  —  salary  now,  not 
wages  —  should  be  docked;  and  though  under  what 
pressure  of  persuasion  I  never  knew,  I  was  put  into  a 
room  adjoining  that  of  Mr.  Egerton  Sims.  Then  we 
began  our  life  together,  and  it  came  upon  me  tardily 
that  I  was  not  serving  him  so  much  as  he  was  forming 


14  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

me.  I  had  fixed  hours  of  study,  and  there  were  other 
hours  when  we  read  together.  Except  when  we  rode, 
there  was  no  time  that  I  could  see  when  I  actually 
served  him.  This  I  haltingly  represented  to  him,  not 
knowing,  as  yet,  how  to  meet  his  air  of  serene  equip- 
ment, and  he  stated  briefly  that  he  was  in  process  of 
making  me  what  he  considered  valuable.  That  I  ac- 
cepted with  humility,  because  I  could  readily  see  that, 
raw  material  as  I  was,  I  could  not  be,  at  this  point,  of 
any  value  to  him.  Then  I  proposed  that  I  should  not 
take  money  from  him  until  I  was  capable  of  earning 
it,  and  this  also  he  put  aside  with  a  perfect  dignity. 
But  it  was  unearned  money,  all  the  same,  and  with 
some  idea  that  I  might  return  it  to  him  at  a  moment 
when  I  had  learned  how  to  encounter  his  calm,  I  saved 
it  with  a  rigid  penury,  and  watched  him,  from  what 
was,  I  am  now  sure,  a  great  devotion,  to  fulfil  some 
extraordinary  service,  since  I  was  so  unfitted  for  the 
lesser  obvious  ones,  if  he  should  ever  ask  it  of  me.  But 
he  never  did.  We  were  simply,  for  five  years,  master 
and  pupil,  an  older  man  and  the  son  of  his  choice. 

In  that  time  his  bodily  state  became  less  and  less 
secure,  and  for  this  reason  we  settled  more  methodi- 
cally into  the  pursuits  of  the  scholar.  He  knew  a  little 
Latin,  and  that  he  taught  me.  It  was,  his  part  of  it, 
chiefly  like  opening  a  gate  into  a  country  he  had  not 
fully  explored  and  had  little  curiosity  about.  Nor  did  I 
care  so  fervently  for  the  country,  though  I  was  conscious 
of  inquisitiveness  and  wonder.  That  may  have  been 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  15 

because  his  own  tastes  marked  me  so  deeply.  But  for 
Greek  I  did  care,  as  he  did.  It  was  our  happiness,  our 
rest,  our  worship.  We  read  the  English  poets,  too,  and 
some  history,  and  he  gave  me  a  fair  knowledge  of  Angli- 
cized French.  German  I  taught  myself  to  read,  also 
Italian;  but  no  native  would  have  recognized  his 
tongue,  in  either  case,  if  I  had  been  so  barbarous  as  to 
speak  it.  I  am  not  going  to  talk  about  the  island,  or 
our  pursuits  there.  It  was  always  alien  to  me,  though  so 
beautiful.  There  was  something  in  me  that  quickened 
under  its  soft  enchantment.  I  saw  not  the  island  of 
the  present  day,  but  all  the  tropical  unknown  seas. 
I  was  a  discoverer,  always  aglow  with  wonder.  But 
through  it  all,  in  moments  of  inquietude,  I  felt  the 
spell  of  the  cold  north.  When  I  saw  lianas  dragging 
at  succulent  lush  trees,  growth  fighting  for  its  standing 
room,  sun  and  moisture  in  their  terrible  tyranny  domi- 
nating the  atoms  and  making  them  rage  toward  the 
consummation  of  life,  sometimes  I  would  find  suddenly 
before  my  mind's  eye  the  fretwork  of  bare  branches  on 
a  New  England  ridge  against  the  gold  of  an  autumn 
sun.  Certain  things  I  never  got  used  to  :  the  sunrise, 
the  sunset,  so  swiftly  done,  without  the  lingering  pag- 
eant I  had  known  behind  the  hilltops  from  my  father's 
farm,  the  painted  macaws,  the  strange  fruits,  bland 
and  cloying  to  the  tongue,  the  look  of  the  dark  passion- 
ate skies  and  the  brightness  of  the  stars  —  all  these 
inspired  me  with  a  perennial  excited  joy,  yet  a  joy  that 
I  could  never  sink  into  and  make  really  mine.  I  had 


16  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

always  the  sense  that  I  was  there  for  a  little  time,  a 
proving  perhaps,  and  that  then  we  might  go  elsewhere, 
and  I  should  be  able  to  serve  my  friend  more  completely, 
to  return  him  what  he  had  given  me.  For  always  I  had 
the  sense  of  hoarding  something  for  him,  as  a  child 
enriched  with  pennies  would  save  them  against  the  day 
when  the  dear  giver  might  need  even  so  small  a  thing. 

Since  my  mother's  death  I  had  grown  niggard  of 
affection.  The  circle  of  it  had  narrowed  to  this  one 
man.  Women  I  knew  not  at  all,  for  he  had  nothing 
more  than  a  courteous  civility  for  the  shifting  crowd 
at  the  hotel ;  and  though  I  might  reasonably  have 
shared  in  any  brief  connection  he  made  there,  I  had  a 
strong  feeling  that  I  ought  every  time  to  say  that  I 
had  been  promoted  from  the  stable.  And  that  was 
too  much  trouble,  besides  being  ridiculous  and  not 
according  with  the  self-respecting  traditions  of  my 
birth.  I  was,  too,  inordinately  shy.  It  was  anguish 
for  me  to  encounter  the  womenfolk  of  my  former  life 
below  stairs,  and,  with  a  fiendish  intelligence,  they 
knew  it  and  paid  me  out  to  the  tune  of  titters  and 
mock-admiring  chaff.  One  black-eyed  jade,  a  laun- 
dress, barred  my  way  once  in  a  passage  out  of  the 
kitchen  when  I  was  taking  a  short  cut  to  the  stable, 
and  vowed  I  should  stay  there  till  I  kissed  her;  and 
when  I  would  have  pushed  past  her  she  threw  herself 
upon  my  shoulder  and  clung  there  with  feline  claws,  the 
while  her  truly  awful  cries  summoned  her  ready  mates. 
And  they,  knowing  her  game,  and  being  as  tickled  as 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  17 

she,  yet  affected  horror  of  my  liberties  with  a  pretty 
girl,  and  when  I  tossed  her  against  the  wall  and  went 
my  way,  they  rocked  back  and  forth  and  cried,  I  believe, 
with  joy  of  me.  And  I  must  have  been  a  silly,  for  I 
was  all  aflame  with  anger;  and  even  Egerton  Suns 
saw  it  an  hour  after,  when  I  tried  to  read  my  Greek. 

"What's  the  matter?"  he  asked.  "What  is  it, 
Martin?" 

If  I  could  have  blubbered  straight  out,  it  might 
have  done  me  instant  good.  I'm  sure  I  felt  like  it. 
But  I  told  him,  with  a  stiff  lip,  that  a  fool  of  a  girl 
in  the  kitchen —  There  I  stopped.  It  was  not 
worth  the  pains.  But  upon  this  hint  that  I  had  in 
some  way  been  making  free  with  wenches,  he  looked 
grave,  and  set  to  work  to  instruct  me,  so  that  life 
should  henceforth  hold  no  surprises  for  me.  And 
though  I  listened  at  first  with  the  hot  intent  of  roar- 
ing out  that  he  was  doing  me  wrong,  and  I  had  not 
stepped  a  step  toward  their  hateful  blandishments,  I 
presently  sank  into  the  awed  and  humbled  quiet  of  a 
youth  who  hears  an  older  man,  with  some  pains  to 
his  own  habit  of  reticence,  inducting  him  into  the 
dignity  of  life.  That  hour  was  the  crowning  one  in 
my  love  for  Egerton  Sims.  He  talked  to  me  about 
the  body,  and  he  talked,  though  under  no  such  term, 
about  the  soul.  I  was  made  to  see  that  the  tyranny 
of  the  one  must  never  threaten  the  mastery  of  the 
other.  In  the  decent  man  there  was  no  divided  house. 
There  were  to  be  no  secret  and  disordered  chambers. 


18  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

And  he  gave  me  to  understand  that  the  reward  of  the 
undivided  house  was,  if  it  came  to  pass,  an  honorable 
marriage  with  a  cleanly  mate.  If  it  did  not  come  to 
pass  —  there  he  paused,  and  the  sudden  startled, 
tired  pallor  of  his  face  smote  into  me  the  certainty 
that  he  had  said  what  he  must,  in  his  fastidious  duty 
to  me,  but  that  the  path  had  led  him  into  lonesome 
chambers  he  did  not  enter  willingly.  He  rose  and 
left  me,  and  I  saw  him  no  more  until  dinner,  when  he 
was  his  unchanged  gentle  self. 

It  was  a  hot  night,  and  we  were  sitting  on  the  hotel 
veranda,  a  little  table  before  us  with  cooling  drinks. 
Others  were  there,  too,  at  little  tables.  A  tourist 
steamer  had  come  in  that  day,  and  the  island  echoed 
to  the  high  American  voice.  I  might  long  for  the 
fretwork  of  trees  against  the  sky,  but  not  yet  did  I 
crave  my  countryman  as  he  showed  himself  on  his 
incursions.  Such  a  communication  as  my  friend  and 
master  had  to  make  to  me  might  have  been  more  fitly 
broached  in  some  other  scene  in  the  silence  of  our 
island  home.  But  he  did  make  it  here. 

"Martin,"  he  said,  "I  think  we'll  go  to  England." 

I  felt  a  sudden  lifting  of  the  heart,  a  sense  of  great 
coolness  and  space,  welcome  to  me  in  that  latitude. 
I  did  not  answer,  but  my  eyes  felt  hot.  He  looked  at 
me,  and  he  must  have  seen  how  I  felt. 

"Why,  boy,"  said  he  in  his  kindest  voice  that  was 
ever  kind,  "I  believe  you're  glad." 

I  suddenly  recognized  not  only  that  I  was  glad, 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  19 

but  that  I  was  indeed  a  boy  who  had  been  homesick 
for  a  long  time.  My  heat  must  have  been  very  wel- 
come to  him  in  his  own  longing,  and  under  the  throb 
of  it,  as  if  I  had  struck  out  a  spark,  he  told  me  some- 
thing in  a  sudden  confidence  and  sense  of  the  identi- 
fication of  our  desires  that  he  might  otherwise  have 
meant  to  keep. 

"I  might  as  well  say,  — "  There  he  paused.  I 
thought  it  concerned  his  health,  failing,  it  seemed  to 
me,  of  late,  and  I  urged  him. 

"What?    What  is  it,  sir?" 

"I  may  as  well  tell  you  I  am  going  to  England  on 
a  business  matter.  Concerning  you." 

" Concerning  me?"  I  could  only  repeat  the  last 
two  words.  What  business  there  might  be  to  concern 
me  in  England  or  indeed  the  world,  I  could  not  guess. 

"I  have  determined,"  said  he,  in  his  stiff,  grave  way, 
"to  make  you,  so  far  as  I  can,  my  heir.  I  shall  have  to 
go  back  to  England,  to  run  over  certain  details  and 
technicalities,  really  to  find  out  how  much  I  can  do." 

I  was  conscious  of  a  crimson  heat  about  my  face 
and  in  my  eyes.  All  the  blood  I  had  had  gone  into 
my  head  and  my  hands  were  icy  cold.  I  spoke,  and 
my  voice  sounded  strange  to  me,  even  angry. 

"You  mustn't  go  back  to  England,  sir." 

"Why  not?"  He  had  always  a  manner  of  speech 
of  the  most  moving  gentleness. 

"You  can't  risk  it.  That's  why  you  were  sent 
here  —  for  the  climate." 


20  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

I  was  telling  him  what  he  had  previously  told  me. 
He  answered  in  rather  a  tired  voice,  one  I  had  not 
heard  from  him.  It  seemed  to  say  the  play  was  over, 
and  he  was  weary  and  was  going  home,  whether  the 
home  were  England  or  another  port.  And  again  I 
was  angry,  with  the  unreasoning  passion  of  terror 
that  comes  when  we  see  the  beloved  slipping  irrev- 
ocably away. 

"  Don't  go,  sir,"  I  said.     "  Don't  go." 

Whether  I  meant  to  England,  to  brave  its  chill, 
or  whether  I  meant  to  the  heaven  I  thought  him 
wholly  fitted  for,  I  did  not  know.  Only  I  wanted 
him  not  to  break  the  crystal  of  our  present  life,  here 
in  a  midstream  of  being,  satisfied  with  our  books 
and  the  course  of  little  things. 

"It  won't  make  any  difference,  boy,"  he  said,  and 
I  saw  I  had  pleased  him  by  my  impetuous  outcry. 
"It's  nearly  finished." 

And  I  understood  he  meant  his  life.  He  said  no 
more,  and  I  sat  with  youth's  sickening  grief  upon  me, 
the  shadow  of  things  to  come.  I  hardly  thought  at 
all  of  what  his  generosity  held  out  to  me,  and  really 
only  as  it  showed  his  pervasive  kindliness.  I  had 
known  he  loved  me,  known  it  from  day  to  day  in  his 
careful  fostering  of  me,  his  insistence  on  my  learning 
every  formula  relative  to  life  as  it  is  lived;  but  he 
might  have  been  constrained  to  that  by  his  own  great 
sense  of  duty.  This  confidence  of  his  made  it  an 
affection  the  more  immediate  and  urgent.  I  felt 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  21 

madly  proud,  as  if  he  had  chosen  me  to  represent 
his  name  and  the  duties  of  his  blood.  Presently  we 
said  good  night,  and  I  got  away  into  the  hot  dark  to 
think  it  over,  to  meet  face  to  face  the  omnipotence 
that  says,  "Thus  shall  it  be."  I  felt  as  I  had  when 
I  saw  my  mother  slipping,  and  had  not  been  able  to 
snatch  her  back  from  the  trap  where  we  find  ourselves 
at  last.  And  the  night  waned,  and  I  was  absurdly 
hungry  and  thirsty,  like  a  child,  with  my  battlings 
against  Almighty  God,  and  I  went  home  and  to  bed. 
But  in  the  morning  I  found  he  had  died,  suddenly  it 
seemed  and  perhaps  without  much  pain. 

Ill 

IT  was  all  over  very  quickly,  and  no  one,  not  even 
he  was  so  dead  as  I.  The  haste  of  it  stunned  me; 
the  impossibility  of  living  for  a  long  time  without 
him  left  me  feeling  small  and  young.  A  connection 
of  his  in  an  official  position  at  St.  Thomas  came  at 
once,  and  my  friend  was  buried.  He  had  given  orders 
that  if  he  died  on  the  island  he  should  be  left  there, 
and  though  his  cousin,  a  man  of  puffy  importance  and 
an  exaggeration  of  the  rights  of  kin,  professed  to  be 
shocked  by  the  irregularity  of  this  injunction,  he  ful- 
filled it  with  a  solemn  haste,  glad,  it  seemed  to  me,  to 
waste  no  more  time  over  it.  Me  he  seemed  to  regard 
with  some  suspicion  as  a  person  unreasonably  and  ca- 
priciously promoted  from  the  company  of  horseflesh  to 


22  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

a  presuming  familiarity  with  gentlemen's  ways.  It 
was  as  if  I  had  not  come  by  them  honestly.  At  the 
end,  when,  with  the  look  of  another  task  well  over,  he 
went  back  to  his  work,  he  gave  me  a  nod  of  dismissal, 
and  I  felt  in  that  as  in  everything  that  had  happened 
to  me  since  my  friend  died,  a  dismissal  from  the  island 
as  well.  I  had  not  thought  really  for  an  instant  of 
what  I  was  to  do ;  but  that  same  day  a  boat  touched 
there  on  its  way  to  New  York,  and  I  withdrew  my 
savings  from  the  bank  and  went  on  board.  Many 
were  kind  to  me  at  parting,  but  to  all  of  them  I  felt  a 
sort  of  numbness.  I  felt  as  if  an  arm  had  been  cut 
off,  my  right  arm,  and  I  was  bleeding.  It  gave  me 
no  uplift  or  sense  of  youthful  wonder  to  think  the 
roads  were  opening  before  me,  the  roads  I  had  seen  in 
my  childish  discontents.  It  was  only  that  my  friend 
was  dead,  and  that  I  was  going  elsewhere  to  be  as 
much  like  him  as  I  could.  On  the  boat  I  talked  with 
one  and  another  about  the  States  which  I  knew  as 
little,  except  for  the  New  England  country,  as  if  I 
had  been  born  in  Trinidad,  and  from  an  old-fashioned 
man  and  his  wife,  a  lady  who  belonged  to  a  great 
many  phases  of  advanced  thought,  I  gathered  that 
the  life  I  intended  to  pursue  could  be  lived  in  Boston 
better  than  New  York.  For  I  wanted  to  live  cheaply, 
to  be  a  student.  This  I  told  them,  not  having  the 
audacity  to  assert  my  further  intention  of  being  a 
writer.  A  kind  of  maiden  shame  was  on  me  about 
writing  and  would  be,  I  felt,  until  I  had  proved 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  23 

myself.  I  did  not  know  then  that  it  is  so  intimate  a 
dearness  of  the  heart  that  one  must  always  keep  it 
rather  close,  like  secret  love. 

When  I  saw  the  bare,  bleak  shore  of  my  land,  I  was 
glad,  very  glad.  I  don't  hesitate  to  say  that  New 
York  scared  me  and  roused  in  me  a  very  pretty  case 
of  homesickness.  I  was  disgustedly  sure  I  was  a 
mollycoddle,  and  after  two  days  I  took  the  boat  for 
Boston;  and  there,  through  the  Captain's  recom- 
mendation, I  fell  at  once  into  a  lodging-house  that 
was  trying  with  all  its  jolly  might  to  make  itself  a 
home.  It  was  on  Burke  Street,  and  aunt  Cely  kept 
it.  This  I  heard  her  called  three  times  over  by  three 
different  persons  within  half  an  hour  of  my  arrival. 
I  thought  I  must  say  Mrs.  Cely,  but  she  smiled  the 
catholic  smile  of  a  large  woman  whose  feet  are  peren- 
nially tired  and  to  whom  small  things  have  ceased  to 
be  of  any  account,  and  told  me  Celia  was  her  given 
name.  Everybody  called  her  by  it,  and  she  shouldn't 
hardly  know  who  they  meant  if  they  said  Mis'  Black- 
stone.  She  was  of  no  age  because  she  was  so  fat  and 
so  flushed  all  over  the  fine  skin  of  her  face  that  not  a 
mark  would  hold,  and  I  liked  her  at  once  so  well  that 
I  was  glad  to  say  aunt  Cely.  I  don't  remember  all 
the  people  in  the  house  at  that  time ;  but  Mary  Owen 
was  there  and  Mr.  Haley.  Mary  looked  to  me  a 
woman  quite  into  middle  age;  I  believe  she  was 
thirty-three,  but  she  had  worked  so  hard  that  the 
fine  bony  framework  of  her  face  made  itself  too  evi- 


24  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

dent  under  the  tawny  skin,  —  the  skin  a  pleasant 
color,  always  with  freckles  on  it.  She  had  a  fine 
profile,  Mary  had,  and  a  large  mouth  with  white 
teeth.  (It  was  a  mercy,  she  told  me  once,  that  they 
had  no  crack  nor  blemish,  because  a  dentist  would 
have  been  the  one  last  straw.)  And  she  had  fine 
brown  hair,  a  quantity  of  it,  coiled  round  and  round 
in  a  way  to  save  time  in  doing  up.  It  was  straight, 
yet  capriciously  it  had  little  wisps  of  curl  sometimes 
near  the  face  when  Mary  was  very  hot  or  the  day 
grew  humid.  She  was  rather  gaunt,  but  she  had 
good  shoulders  and  a  splendid  long  stride.  Mary  was 
probably  what  the  dressmakers  and  appraisers  would 
have  called  a  striking  looking  woman,  one  that  would 
pay  for  dressing.  But  the  truth  was,  she  had  so  little 
consciousness  of  herself,  such  an  absolute  nullity  of 
interest  in  frills  and  things,  that,  in  its  foolish  imita- 
tiveness,  the  eye  passed  by  her.  In  this  matter  of 
admiration  of  the  sexes,  we  do  chiefly  what  we  are 
commanded.  If  a  woman  flings  an  audacity  over 
her,  we  look  again.  We  say  she  must  have  some- 
thing extraordinary  to  recommend  her  or  she'd  never 
have  the  gall.  I  have,  in  my  business  of  looking  on 
at  life,  seen  plain  women  who  might  have  been  ex- 
pected to  keep  a  piteous  solitude  from  their  lack  of 
commodity;  but  that  instinct  of  advertising  led  them 
to  the  public  eye,  they  endured  your  gaze  and  de- 
fied it,  and  instead  of  saying,  "Poor  toad,"  as  Mary 
would  have  said,  you  wondered  a  little  at  them  and 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  25 

thought,  "Well,  what  if,  after  all!"  It's  a  species  of 
hypnosis. 

Mary  was  eternally  busy.  She  worked  in  a  lawyer's 
office  down  town,  and  all  the  confusion  of  her  life 
never  moved  her  ordered  calm.  Besides  that,  she  was 
up  early  when  aunt  Cely  was  stalled  with  rheumatism 
and  some  new  slavey  had  proved  incompetent,  doing 
up  the  rooms  at  that  interval  while  the  lodgers  were 
at  breakfast.  And  she  had  other  interests  outside, 
such  as  I  learned  later.  Mr.  Haley  I  met  on  the  stairs 
the  first  day  of  my  stay,  a  red-haired,  paunchy  looking 
person  in  a  plaid  waistcoat,  and  I  thought  in  my 
innocence,  and  judging  from  the  fitness  of  things, 
that  he  was  probably  a  bartender.  I  found  out  after- 
ward that  he  did  some  sort  of  work  for  a  missionary 
society  down  town.  Aunt  Cely  and  Mary  were  talk- 
ing about  him  a  little  later  that  morning  across  a 
brush  and  dustpan  at  my  door. 

"You'll  have  to  marry  him,"  said  aunt  Cely,  as  a 
reasonable  proposition. 

"Mercy !"  said  Mary,  not  aghast,  yet  as  if  it  were 
a  project  she  might  have  to  entertain.  Mr.  Haley's 
sister  had  died,  she  explained  to  me. 

"She  was  a  widow,  and  he's  had  to  take  the  baby. 
If  he  can't  get  it  brought  up  in  the  country  —  well.!" 

Her  brows  crinkled.  Poor  Mary !  I  saw  at  once 
she  had  no  desire  whatever  to  marry  him.  But  with 
hypothetical  babies  wailing  for  her  she  might  have  to. 

Manners  in  the  lodging-house  were  of  the  easiest 


26  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

and  kindest.  It  was  a  natural  custom  of  the  evening 
for  me  to  stop  at  the  open  door  of  Mary's  little  room 
if  I  went  past  while  she  sat  there  desperately  putting 
on  dress  braids  and  things;  and  once  she  offered  to 
take  a  stitch  in  the  frayed  end  of  my  cravat.  I  let 
her  with  the  unformulated  ease  and  gratitude  men 
accord  to  women  who  offer  no  challenge  to  the  eye. 
What  Mary  would  have  been  with  consciousness  of 
any  sort  —  either  of  her  sex  or  the  possibilities  of  her 
healthy  nature  —  I  do  not  know.  She  had  abso- 
lutely none.  She  kept  a  fine  shyness  of  her  own,  too. 
Life,  so  far  as  she  seemed  to  see  it,  might  have  been 
a  hand  to  mouth  existence  on  an  island,  where  every- 
body's absorbing  duty  lay  in  services  of  one  wrecked 
mariner  for  another.  She  was  lifting  all  the  time, 
carrying  starved  kittens  to  their  lawful  refuge,  con- 
ducting the  old  and  the  blind  across  the  street  —  I 
believe  she  went  shopping  with  an  unknown  grandame 
one  day  and  lost  the  borrowed  hour  for  getting  her 
own  new  hat  —  and  this  with  no  priggishness  or 
official  philanthropy.  She  was  always  looking  about 
with  her  clear,  rather  frowning,  puzzled  gaze,  to  see 
what  manner  of  world  it  might  be  and,  not  liking  it 
very  well,  trying  honestly  and  wistfully  to  wash  it  a 
little  cleaner,  iron  it  out,  and  shine  it  up  a  trifle  here 
and  there.  One  effect  she  had.  She  made  me  feel 
at  home,  and  without  doing  anything  about  it.  I 
found  the  world  much  warmer  because  she  was  near. 
She  asked  me  frankly  what  I  did,  because  it  was  the 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  27 

custom  of  the  people  she  knew  to  do  something,  do 
it  desperately,  indeed :  for  if  they  did  it  in  any  desul- 
tory fashion  they  were  likely  to  have  their  time  on 
their  hands.  I  told  her  as  unreservedly  and  with  no 
sense  that  it  was  unusual,  that  I  had  saved  a  little 
money  and  I  meant  to  live  on  that  until  it  was  gone, 
and  then  I  should  go  to  work.  Mary  drew  her  brows 
together  and  looked  serious.  I  seemed  to  her  an  idle 
apprentice,  and  she  asked  me  directly  whether  I  was 
run  down  or  whether  that  was  because  I  had  got  the 
ways  of  warm  climates,  and  why  I  didn't  go  to  work 
at  once.  I  explained  that  I  didn't  know  anything.  So 
I  was  going  to  study  until  I  did. 

"You  could  go  on  a  paper,"  said  Mary,  her  clear 
gaze  on  me,  all  the  sibylline  lore  of  the  mother  in  her 
eyes.  "You  don't  have  to  know  anything  for  that." 
Then  she  seemed  to  think  a  minute  —  we  were  in  the 
lower  hall,  separated  by  the  frightful  elaboration  of  the 
newel-post,  the  smell  of  the  backstairs  oil-cloth  in  our 
nostrils.  "I  think,"  said  Mary,  as  if  she  were  called 
upon  to  prescribe  for  me,  "you'd  better  get  acquainted 
with  Mr.  Blake." 

Who  was  he  ? 

"He  has  the  back  attic,"  she  explained.  "He's 
very  learned.  He  writes  poetry." 

I  had  no  drawing  toward  inchoate  young  men  no  more 
of  a  student  than  I  meant  to  be,  if  it  came  to  that,  with 
uncrowned  verse  upon  their  knees.  So  I  was  beginning 
to  go  up  the  stairs  to  escape  her  kindness  even  if  I  must 


28  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

evade  her  in  the  doing,  and  at  that  moment  the  front 
door  behind  us  opened,  propelled  by  a  man  who  couldn't 
get  his  key  out  because  he  was  so  in  a  hurry,  and 
John  Blake  himself  came  in.  He  was  tall,  strong 
enough,  capable  of  being  athletically  developed  if  he 
gave  his  mind  to  it,  black-eyed  —  eyes  so  velvet  soft 
I  had  never  seen  —  a  great  rugged  forehead  and  a  nose 
that  might  have  allowed  him  to  be  anything  at  the  top 
of  the  scale. 

"That's  a  statesman's  nose/'  I  should  have  said  if 
I'd  caught  it  in  the  open. 

But  the  mouth  —  with  its  scrubby  line  of  black  above 
—  there  were  the  emotions  in  John  Blake's  mouth, 
clean  ones,  all  of  them,  and  some  so  exquisite  they'd 
need  the  intimate  delicacies  of  verse  to  tell  about  them. 
Mary  turned  to  him  at  the  opening  of  the  door,  and  his 
face  flashed  all  over  at  the  sight  of  her  —  red  fire  in  the 
eyes,  curves  in  the  mouth,  and  the  least  little  delicate 
uplift  of  the  brows  in  a  pleased  interrogation.  That, 
as  I  noted  it,  seemed  to  indicate  that  he  liked  Mary 
very  much.  And  so  he  did;  but  his  nature  was  a 
responsive  one,  swiftly  played  upon.  He  often  seemed 
to  be  answering  when  his  nerves  were  only  saying,  "I 
hear."  And  the  things  they  heard  were  far  away  from 
us  who  made  the  circuit  for  him.  He  couldn't  share 
them  with  us.  We  didn't  even,  most  of  the  time,  get 
an  echo.  That  was  why,  though  you  might  adore 
Blake,  you  were  so  eternally  lonesome  with  him.  I 
had  really  halted,  staring  at  the  splendid  vision  of  him, 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  29 

and  before  I  turned,  Mary  had  me  by  the  name  and 
was  introducing  us.  His  face  darkened  in  civility. 
"What  the  devil  —  "  it  seemed  to  say.  "  Who's  this  ?" 
But  when  Mary  pelted  out  that  I  was  a  young  man 
just  come  from  a  warm  place  —  as  if  it  had  been  the 
fabled  destination  of  sinners  —  and  that  I  was  going 
to  study  and  write  books  —  she  made  it  poetry  —  he 
gave  me  a  smile  a  cut  below  Mary's,  but  still  very  sweet 
and  full  of  curves. 

"Come  up  to  my  room,"  said  he  to  me.  "Let's 
talk  it  over." 

Mary  turned  away  content,  possibly  to  go  down  the 
oil-clothed  stairs  to  the  basement  and  make  something 
cleaner,  and  Blake  and  I  mounted  to  his  attic  room  with 
one  window  approached  by  a  tiny  platform  and  giving 
a  view  of  the  sunset  sky  and  the  Charles.  It  was  a 
meagre,  hideous  room  in  all  the  lines  of  its  furnishings, 
yet  faded  through  age  to  a  uniform  and  according  dul- 
ness  that  was  not  unpleasant.  And  it  was  very  clean. 
I  found  out  afterward  that  he  raged  and  stormed 
if  he  was  not  given  his  share  of  hot  water  and  soap. 
You  might  starve  him,  but  he  must  find  the  world 
scrubbed.  The  dignity  of  the  room  —  for  it  had 
dignity  —  lay  in  the  lavishness  of  books,  piled  on  a 
great  square  table  under  the  light  of  the  party  wall, 
books  in  ordered  heaps  all  round  the  floor.  Blake 
threw  off  his  coat  and  hat  —  I  had  flung  my  hat  into 
my  room  in  passing  —  pointed  out  two  shabby  old 
chairs  by  the  grate,  evidently  his  own,  and  poked 


30  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

about  among  the  papers  on  the  table,  his  long  supple 
fingers  threading  in  and  out. 

"A  fellow  left  a  cigar  here  the  other  day/7  he  said, 
as  if  in  an  interested  quest  which  absorbed  him  more 
than  the  value  of  what  he  might  find  by  it.  "It 
seemed  to  me  rather  a  good  one.  Ah!" 

He  had  come  on  it.  He  held  it  out  to  me  with  a 
fascinating  smile  of  eager  generosity.  I  hesitated. 

" Don't  you  smoke?"  I  asked.  There  seemed  not 
to  be  two  cigars. 

" No."  He  looked  rueful,  like  a  child  ashamed.  "It 
acts  like  the  devil  on  me,  just  like  tea  and  coffee.  I 
can't  have  any  vices.  I've  been  addicted  to  bread 
and  water.  They've  undone  me." 

I  took  the  cigar  and  held  it,  took  the  match  he  gave 
me,  for  I  knew  after  that  first  minute  he  wouldn't 
know  whether  I  smoked  or  not.  His  mind,  having 
concerned  itself  with  the  anxious  cares  of  the  conven- 
tionally polite,  would  settle  down  with  a  long  breath 
to  its  abiding  interests.  The  cigar  would  find  its  way 
back  to  the  table,  and  the  next  visitor  would  see  it 
innocently  introduced  to  him  as  a  rather  good  one  a 
fellow  left  there.  Blake  sat  down  at  ease,  as  if  the  only 
troublesome  thing  connected  with  my  visit  were  well 
over  in  his  having  essayed  the  proffer  of  a  customary 
joy.  Now  he  looked  approximately  happy.  His  fore- 
head smoothed  out.  His  eyes  took  on  the  calm  of  the 
man  who  feels  himself  at  home  in  a  spot  that  has  long 
offered  him  the  serenity  of  ordered  pursuits. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  31 

"What  sort  of  things  are  you  doing?"  he  caught 
himself  back  to  ask  me.  His  mind  had  been  stretch- 
ing away,  I  know  now,  to  the  great  names  he  was 
always  marching  with. 

"Nothing,"  said  I. 

He  nodded,  as  if  in  an  easy  comprehension. 

"Fallow  time?  One  of  those  infernal  spells  when 
you  think  you  never'll  write  another  stroke  and  sweat 
and  groan  and  curse  yourself?  It'll  pass.  It  always 
does.  Read  some  poetry.  That's  what  brings  the 
fever  on." 

I  felt  most  deplorably  lacking  in  all  he  might  expect 
of  me. 

"I  don't  write/'  I  said.     "I've  never  written  at  all." 

He  stared  at  me. 

"Mary  said  you  did." 

"I  told  her  I  wanted  to." 

Here  was  a  drop  from  the  high  land  of  desert.  I  was 
no  better  than  the  lads  and  misses  dancing  out  of  uni- 
versities to  dip  their  pens  and  plunge.  The  interest 
not  only  faded  out  of  his  face  but  ebbed  suddenly, 
leaving  it  as  flat  as  such  a  nobly  proportioned  harmony 
of  features  could  well  be.  His  only  wish,  I  could  see, 
was  to  get  me  out  of  the  room.  Suddenly  I  was  as 
fiercely  determined  not  to  go.  There  was  treasure 
for  me  in  that  room,  coaxing  possibilities,  the  problem 
of  his  hidden  mind,  the  books,  the  sealed  silences  of 
it  all.  Desperate,  I  opened  my  lips  and  spoke.  I 
talked  about  the  only  thing  I  knew  —  Trinidad  and 


32  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

the  tropics.  He  got  interested,  not  in  me  but  in  the 
world  of  life  and  growth.  I  bade  him  remember  what 
an  island  was  to  the  great  Elizabethans  when  they 
dreamed  of  them  and  beheld  the  ocular  proof  of  their 
rich  fantasy  of  leaves.  He  took  fire  and  quoted 
Shakspeare  and  the  " still  vex'd  Bermoothes."  Not 
a  question  did  he  ask  me  about  the  prospects  of  com- 
merce as  it  concerned  the  United  States,  nor  whether 
the  importation  of  sugar  would  affect  our  sales.  No: 
but  he  knew  of  the  great  silk  cotton  tree,  he  was  avid  of 
news  about  the  flashing  of  colors  on  the  heads  of  macaws ; 
and  were  the  humming-birds  extinct?  He  knew  the 
tropical  jungle,  that,  breathing  air  and  sun,  reared  itself 
and  flung  arms  and  trailed  ropes  of  gorgeous  potency. 
He  had  heard  of  the  swamps  where  mandrakes  stand 
with  their  bare  leafless  legs  in  water  and  multiply  and 
make  their  impenetrable  barrier.  And  he  had  a  theory 
I  knew  I  could  not  shake  him  in,  that  the  stars  of  the 
tropics  are  not  to  be  mentioned  with  ours,  flaming, 
golden  worlds.  Indeed  they  are  different,  but  not  in 
the  degree  his  poetic  mind  had  pictured.  I  believe 
he  would  not  have  been  surprised  if  I  had  told  him  I 
had  seen  the  palpitant  birth  of  a  new  star,  the  atoms 
rushing  together  out  of  the  Milky  Way  and  the  round 
orb  hurled  on  its  ordered  course.  Nothing  surprised 
John  Blake,  nothing  splendid  and  audacious.  But  I 
snatched  at  the  first  pause,  and  asked  him  about  his 
poetry.  What  had  he  done?  He  gloomed  a  little, 
and  I  saw  his  achievement  only  mocked  at  his  amazing 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  33 

dreams.  He  took  up  a  thin  gray  volume  and  handed 
it  to  me.  These  were  small  perfect  lyrics,  with  nothing 
of  his  colossal  thirsts  and  imaginations  in  them.  That 
I  could  see  at  one  race  over  the  pages.  But  the  men- 
tion of  it  had  led  him  into  another  path,  one  dangerous 
to  me.  For  now  he  began  to  put  me  through  my  ex- 
amination. It  was  all  unconsciously  done,  just  as  he 
would  have  sounded  me  on  any  topic  where  we  had 
kindred  tastes.  The  seventeenth  century  was  his 
playground.  He  had  lived  there  until  its  lyrics  were 
at  his  tongue's  end,  the  dates  of  birth  and  death  in- 
dubitable, and  the  obscurest  question  fitted  with  his 
ripe  theory.  Did  I  think  this  or  that?  Poor  lout, 
I  thought  nothing  at  all.  There  was  not  for  me,  there 
never  had  been,  any  cult  of  literature  as  a  sacred  thing. 
I  began  to  see  I  had  looked  on  it  as  the  mirror  to  life, 
the  medium;  but  after  all,  life  was  the  bigger  thing. 
All  the  mountains  and  lakes,  all  the  "  cloud-capped 
towers"  of  the  whole  earth,  even  the  symphonies  and 
poems  might  be  swept  away,  but  life,  warm  life  would 
last,  pulsating  behind  the  veil,  and  clothing  itself  in  new 
forms,  by  sheer  vibration.  This  I  could  not  tell  him. 
I  only  felt  a  hurt  resentment  when  I  saw  him  marking 
me  down  lower  and  lower.  It  was  in  a  way,  a  funny 
way,  as  if  a  Boston  man  met  you  in  the  face  of  the 
Jungfrau  and  asked  you  anxiously  if  you  had  known 
the  Thises  and  Thats  before  he  could  exchange  the 
platitudes  of  awe.  John  Blake,  the  living  breathing 
machine  dedicated  to  immortal  things,  was  more  to 


34  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

me  than  the  seventeenth  century  with  the  beautiful 
dried  leaves  of  fantasy  it  had  left.  He  was  life,  and 
they  were  only  immortality.  But  I  was  made  that 
way.  He  was  made  to  adore  the  written  word.  I  was 
set  in  the  midst  of  the  pageant  of  life,  and  I  adored  that, 
or  rather  I  looked  upon  it  with  wonder  and  felt  the 
littleness  and  the  greatness  of  the  atom  that  made 
a  part  of  it.  I  was  the  atom.  Once  he  referred  to 
men  of  leisure  "like  you,"  and  I  got  hot  over  it. 

"I'm  not  a  man  of  leisure,"  I  said.  "I've  just  three 
hundred  dollars  left,  and  what  I've  had  I've  been  years 
saving  up.  But  I've  got  to  get  to  work  and  do  it 
within  a  year." 

When  he  found  I  was  humble  and  not  cocky,  and  that 
I  meant  to  pitch  in  and  grind,  he  fanned  up  a  waning 
respect  for  me.  And  I  was  gleeful  to  an  ungodly  ex- 
tent to  find  he  had  no  Greek.  But  I  told  him  humbly 
I  was  going  to  the  Public  Library  to  study  the  seven- 
teenth century,  and  then  he  was  mild  with  me,  and 
told  me  I  couldn't  do  better,  but  that  I  mustn't  do  it 
unless  it  called  to  me.  Every  man  must  take  his  own 
line.  Then  the  talk  had  one  of  those  drops  that  come 
from  having  lived  too  long,  and  nothing  would  rescue 
it.  Blake  frankly  yawned,  and  I  took  my  leave  in  a 
let-down  state  of  mind  he  would  have  deplored  if  he 
had  known  it.  He  was  one  of  the  kindest  hearts. 
But  he  frankly  had  no  more  interest  in  me  as  a  possible 
dweller  in  the  chambers  where  he  was  most  at  home. 
I  learned  afterward  —  not  from  his  speech,  for  I 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  35 

think  he  never  recognized  this,  but  from  watching 
him  —  with  how  eager  a  desire  he  put  out  antennae 
to  discovery,  delicately  testing  to  see  who  knew  more 
about  poetry  than  he  did  and  ready  to  call  out  Hail! 
He  was  a  born  hero-worshipper,  and  generous  of  praise. 
But  I  simply  had  not  won  my  spurs,  and  never  should, 
he  must  have  seen :  for  the  questions  of  literary  casuis- 
try he  propounded  were  dull  to  me,  the  dry  shards  of 
delicate  achievement.  I  went  away  galled,  sure  he 
would  never  want  to  see  me  again.  But  he  called 
down  the  stairs  to  me :  - 

"I  think  you'd  better  let  me  take  you  round  to  the 
Toasted  Cheese.  To-morrow  night." 

I  could  go  at  any  time.  I  had  no  engagement  any- 
where save  with  the  seventeenth  century. 

"  Is  it  a  play?"  Tasked. 

"No,"  said  Blake.     "It's  a  club." 


IV 

ON  the  way  to  the  Toasted  Cheese  —  not  far,  a 
basement  in  that  same  neighborhood  —  I  learned  that 
Blake  himself  was  a  journalist  "of  sorts."  He  spoke 
of  it  as  one  might  own  to  driving  a  cab  by  day,  to  the 
end  of  keeping  his  nights  for  divine  pleasures.  At 
present  he  was  on  a  weekly  paper  intended  strictly 
for  the  middle  class  of  wits,  the  folk  also  who  like  to 
be  in  the  swim  of  what  passes  for  thought  and,  having 
no  thinking  apparatus,  take  their  cramming  in  pillules. 


36  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

It  was  really  a  hortus  siccus,  the  pressed  flowers  of  litera- 
ture and  comment.  Blake  said  it  might  have  been 
called  the  Borrowed  Plume  because  it  never  paid  for 
anything  but  collating.  Or  you  could  call  it  the 
Mother  Dove,  or  the  Maternal  Pigeon,  because  it  selected 
and  moulded  and  worked  over  and  imitated,  with  a 
mechanical  deftness,  preparing  nourishment  for  squabs. 
As  we  went  along,  he  found  more  names  for  it,  and 
seemed  to  vent  a  good-natured  spite  against  it.  It 
was  the  Masticator,  the  Pigeon  Crammer,  the  Squabs' 
Delight,  or  what  pleased  him  best,  the  Bally  Thief. 
His  own  part  in  it  was  quite  simple  and  easy  to  perform. 
He  chewed  over  science  and  presented  it  in  doses 
suited  to  the  reading  clubs  of  Lower  Centreville.  He 
selected  verse  of  a  type  calculated  to  send  a  large  pro- 
portion of  any  population  into  luxurious  tears  over  the 
Baby's  Shoe,  The  Convict's  Child,  or  Mother's  Gingham 
Gown.  All  this  drudgery  Blake  viewed  with  a  colossal 
scorn,  and  yet  he  did  it,  as  taking  less  time  than  a 
salaried  position  of  more  honor,  and  talked  about  it  in 
a  mood  of  light-running  irony,  as  if  he  didn't  object  so 
very  much  on  the  whole,  and  might  even  be  tossing 
his  hat  up  while  he  worked.  I  have  seen  a  devout 
Christian  reading  his  guide-book  in  a  church  of  another 
kidney  while  the  misguided  carried  on  their  service,  and 
this  in  no  discourtesy,  since  he  had  the  monopoly  of 
the  ecclesiastical  deity  whom  they  worshipped  amiss. 
God  wasn't  attending  to  them,  and  with  that  vast 
precedent  why  should  he  ?  So  it  was  with  Blake.  He 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  37 

didn't  even  see  the  little  gods  he  was  striding  over  to 
the  stubble  where  he  earned  his  necessary  bread.  The 
high  gods  of  poesy  were  his,  all  gold  and  ivory,  cloud 
and  fire.  He  might  even  have  consented  to  run  little 
pewter  images  in  moulds  to  please  the  children  of  a 
meagre  age. 

In  the  midst  of  his  drollery,  we  came  to  the  Toasted 
Cheese,  in  a  shabby  house  with  windows  all  unwashed. 
These  rooms  they  might  be  able  to  keep  longer  than 
common,  said  Blake,  being  in  the  basement :  unless, 
indeed,  sound  had  a  trick  of  mounting.  They  couldn't 
afford  second  floors  or  thirds,  and  wherever  they'd 
had  attic  rooms  they  were  hastily  asked  to  leave, 
because  lodgers  didn't  like  to  be  kept  awake.  They 
had  been  turned  out  of  house  after  house,  but  that 
didn't  really  matter  because  the  club  had  no  furnish- 
ing beyond  a  few  tables  and  chairs,  and  each  member 
carried  his  own  mug.  These  rooms  had  their  separate 
entrance,  and  Blake  threw  open  the  door  on  a  crowd 
of  fellows  all  talking  competitively.  They  were  young 
men.  I  found  afterward  that  most  of  them  prided 
themselves  on  giving  cause  to  newspaper  paragraphs : 
Les  jeunes  were  doing  so  and  so,  les  jeunes  being  really 
the  Toasted  Cheese.  Blake  took  me  at  once  to  a 
short,  thick-set  fellow  by  himself  at  a  table  in  the 
corner,  an  Irishman,  Johnnie  McCann,  with  upstand- 
ing light  hair  and  a  humorous  mouth,  but  eyes  per- 
petually roaming  and  blinking  and  ready  to  go  crazy 
over  the  thoughts  behind  them.  He  made  me  hos- 


38  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

pitably  welcome,  though  in  an  absent-minded  way, 
as  if  his  musings  were  of  more  value  to  him  than  any 
stimulus  outside,  but  began  to  talk  at  once  to  Blake. 
He  used  untainted  English  though  with  the  slightest 
possible  Gaelic  twist. 

"I  was  up  till  four  last  night,"  said  he. 

Blake  was  ordering  me  some  beer. 

"Any  luck?"  he  asked,  as  if  he  understood  what 
hunt  it  was. 

"Three  songs,"  said  McCann.  "One,  Ireland  in 
Chains,  one  on  the  lines  of  the  Dark  Rosaleen,  the 
other  no  good.  When  the  clock  struck  four,  I  got 
up  and  went  to  the  window,  and  if  I  had  been  over 
any  decent  hole  in  the  world  and  not  a  back  alley,  I 
would  have  thrown  myself  out." 

Blake  nodded  gravely,  then  shook  his  head.  He  had 
a  glass  of  beer  by  him,  but  I  noticed  he  didn't  drink. 
He  had  an  invincible  repugnance  to  deluging  or  cram- 
ming himself  when  he  was  neither  hungry  nor  athirst. 

"I  don't  think  much  of  the  prowess  of  the  stomach," 
I  once  heard  him  say. 

"Can't  do  that,  Johnnie,"  said  he  now.  "Look  out 
for  yourself." 

"Why  can't  I  do  it?"  urged  McCann  contradic- 
tiously.  He  had  all  the  air  of  entering  upon  an  argu- 
ment old  to  him  and  Blake.  Now  he  explained  to 
me.  "It's  my  mania  of  self-destruction.  The  boys 
see  me  through  it  when  they're  round,  but  there'll 
come  a  time  when  they  won't  —  they  won't." 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  39 

He  fell  into  gloomy  musing  and  began  drawing 
circles  with  his  finger  from  a  little  lake  of  beer  on  the 
table. 

Blake  had  been  called  away  to  one  of  the  other 
tables,  and  McCann,  under  some  sense  of  the  claims 
of  a  newcomer,  roused  himself  and  turned  to  me. 
He  had  a  shiny  smile. 

"Yes,  the  boys  take  turns  seeing  me  through  it," 
he  confided  to  me.  "Sometimes  a  fit  doesn't  come  on 
for  six  months.  One  or  other's  detailed  to  see  me 
through.  That's  according  as  they're  at  liberty.  I 
don't  thank  'em  for  it.  They're  all  right,  though," 
said  he,  warming.  "You  bet  they're  all  right." 

Then  there  was  a  petition  for  a  song  from  McCann, 
and  I  wondered  whether  it  had  been  judged  best  to 
quiet  his  nerves  by  melody.  He  yielded  instantly, 
and  began  Vilikins,  in  a  beautiful  tenor,  and  the  boys 
came  in  stormily  on  "  Toorul-lul-loorul-lul-loorul- 
lullay."  When  I  had  caught  it  and  could  come  in 
too  I  felt  more  grown  up  than  I  had  since  Egertori 
Sims  began  to  treat  me  like  an  equal  and  a  gentleman. 
Blake  asked  me  some  questions  across  the  table  about 
Trinidad,  and  I  knew  he  thought  it  was  the  only 
thing  I  could  talk  about.  Indeed  it  was,  but  I  went 
about  it  rather  sulkily,  because  I  wanted,  in  that 
atmosphere,  to  be  "  sporty  "  and  literary,  and  even  to 
disclose  a  suicidal  mania  if  that  would  recommend  me. 
Suddenly,  when  they  had  allowed  me  to  act  the  part 
of  the  honored  guest  for  ten  minutes  or  so,  little  Jake 


40  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

Rand  accosted  me.  He  was  an  atomy  of  a  man  with 
a  perfect  genius  for  imitation  :  he  could  imitate  any- 
thing from  your  own  face  when  you  heard  the  bank 
had  failed  or  Chloris  was  waiting  for  you  down  by  the 
brook,  to  the  styles  of  all  the  classic  and  living  writers. 
He  leaned  across  the  table  and  said  to  me  in  his  im- 
pudent voice  you  never  could  resent  because  it  came 
from  an  atomy :  - 

"Say,  Redfield,  how  did  you  grow  up  so  damned 
old-fashioned?" 

There  was  an  instant's  pause.  I  felt  my  face  scorch- 
ing, but  there  came  a  little  chorus  of  chuckles  as  if 
everybody  saw  how  pat  it  was.  And  nobody  ever 
resented  anything  in  the  Toasted  Cheese.  I  had 
learned  that  already.  They  tried  to  be  men  with  all 
their  swagger  and  armor  of  off-hand  good  humor, 
though  they  were  by  election  jeunes.  But  it  was  not 
temper  I  felt.  He  had  suddenly  thrown  me  back 
five  years,  and  I  felt  the  breath  of  the  Tropics  and 
heard  the  voice  of  my  old  friend.  I  found  my  own 
voice  and  lost  my  shyness. 

"I'll  tell  you,"  said  I.  "I'll  tell  you  all.  I  was  a 
stable  boy  down  in  Trinidad.  A  man  fifty  years  old 
took  me  out  of  the  stable  and  taught  me  all  he  knew 
-  all  but  his  magnificent  manners  and  the  things  he 
couldn't  teach  me  because  they  were  his  and  I  wasn't 
big  enough  to  reach  'em.  He  taught  me  all  I  know, 
and  I  suppose  I've  imitated  him  till  maybe  I  seem 
like  a  man  of  fifty.  Well,  if  that's  why,  I'm  glad  I 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  41 

do."  I  got  up  with  the  hot  haste  of  the  young  and 
lifted  my  borrowed  mug.  "I  drink/'  said  I,  thinking 
of  the  cavalier  he  had  been,  "to  Egerton  Sims." 

There  was  something  in  it  that  caught  them. 

"Good  for  you,"  they  were  yelling,  perhaps  also 
because  they  liked  to  yell  and  seized  a  pretext. 

"Good  boy!"  said  McCann,  coming  out  of  his 
muse  over  his  drink.  And  we  each  put  a  foot  on  the 
table  and  drank  to  Egerton  Sims :  and  Tommy  John- 
son, who  was  writing  plays  full  of  blood  and  silk  and 
swords  and  glove  strokes  in  the  face,  in  an  ecstasy 
of  seeing  the  times  he  loved  come  so  awake,  threw 
his  mug  behind  him,  and  the  glass  bottom  broke, 
and  he  picked  it  up  and  stuck  his  small  hand  through 
it,  and  cut  himself,  and  we  passed  from  our  emotion 
to  instant  delight  and  hailed  him  martyr. 

And  so  was  Egerton  Sims,  the  gentleman,  away 
somewhere  in  his  pilgrimage  among  greater  folk  than 
we,  toasted  in  our  bare  New  England. 


I  DIDN'T  get  over  being  a  little  old-fashioned.  I 
could  play  with  the  rest  of  them,  but  I  had  always  a 
slight  stiffness  of  demeanor,  a  copy  of  my  friend's 
large  and  noble  way  of  taking  things.  I  didn't  know 
this  from  any  sifting  of  myself,  but  I  did  see  it  from 
time  to  time  in  my  effect  on  other  people.  And  it 
troubled  me.  I  would  rather  have  been  Johnnie 


42  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

McCann,  ready  with  his  ballad  to  sing  or  a  chord  to 
strike  on  any  instrument,  even  if  I  found  myself  saddled 
also  with  a  suicidal  mania.  I  thought  I  could  have 
managed  that  and  cast  it  from  me.  But  then  I  had 
an  impregnable  physical  health,  and  until  that  is 
shaken,  we  always  think  we  could  still  the  tremors  of 
our  blood,  its  erring  current.  I  had  a  good  deal  of 
time  here  and  there  with  Blake.  He  seemed  to  think 
me  a  decent  fellow,  though  I  still  knew  nothing  about 
the  seventeenth  century,  and  Mary  brought  us  to- 
gether. She  was  our  friend,  the  friend  of  all  among 
us.  She  seemed  to  know  the  aggregate  members  of 
the  Toasted  Cheese,  one  man  passing  along  the  fame 
of  her  to  another,  and  I  thought  they  all  regarded 
her  as  I  did,  as  an  excellent  fellow  who  might  as  well 
have  been  a  boy. 

But  one  day  Jake  Rand  came  into  the  Toasted 
Cheese  really  tight  because  an  inconsiderable  man  at 
a  removal  of  three  from  a  manager  had  thought  he 
could  get  one  of  his  serious  plays  read.  Jakie  could 
write  as  fast  as  he  could  run,  for  high  schools  and 
girls'  sewing  clubs,  and  really  got  paid  rather  well, 
because  his  farces  accumulated  so ;  but  what  he  really 
wanted  to  do  was  to  bring  folk  out  of  Gibbon,  and 
Miss  Strickland,  and  make  them  spout  and  die.  He 
used  to  go  around  with  big  tomes  of  popular  history 
under  his  arm,  and  we  sang  an  adaptation  of  "the 
devil  clapped  his  paw  on  the  little  tailor,"  to  "his 
Gibbon  under  his  arm,"  with  a  rising  swell  of  voices 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  43 

and  a  brave  da  capo.  He  used  to  drop  down  on 
benches  in  the  Common  to  read,  when  the  weather 
would  admit  it,  and  old  ladies  would  take  him  for  a 
rising  young  student,  and  search  into  the  causes  of 
his  pallor,  and  Jakie  would  tell  them  flaming  stories 
of  the  wearing  result  of  literature  on  a  little  oatmeal. 
But  this  day  when  he  was  tight  on  hope  and  unac- 
customed mixtures,  he  took  me  by  the  arm  and  in- 
quired with  gravity,  — 

"Say,  when  you  goin'  to  propose  to  Mary?" 

Perhaps  I  looked  immovable.  I  suppose  I  tried  to, 
for  that  was  the  way  Egerton  Sims  would  have  met 
like  impudence,  and  he  was  the  solvent  always  in  my 
mind.  Jake  insisted  upon  it  out  of  his  drunken  fervor. 
If  I  hadn't  proposed  to  Mary  I  must  go  and  do  it  at 
once.  Then  when  I  was  betraying  my  disgust  of 
him,  Johnnie  McCann  came  up  and  frowned  him  off, 
implying  meanwhile  to  me  that  I  mustn't  "get  mad." 
There  was  no  offense  in  it,  no  offense  in  the  world. 

"Besides,  it's  a  fact,"  said  he,  "we  all  propose  to 
Mary.  If  you  haven't  been  rejected  by  Mary,  there's 
one  more  thing  you've  got  to  go  through,  that's  all." 

It  struck  me  that  there  was  truth  in  it.  They 
weren't  making  light  of  Mary.  They  actually  did 
propose  to  her.  It  had  become  a  necessity  or  a  fashion. 
I  suddenly  saw  Mary  in  the  light  of  a  spouse  very 
capable,  eternally  getting  other  fellows  in  to  bind 
up  their  wounds  or  cook  messes  for  them  or  tell  them 
she'd  sit  up  at  night  and  copy  that  article  and  be  paid 


44  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

when  it  was  accepted.  The  article  so  born  seldom 
was  accepted.  Mary  in  that  aspect,  the  only  one  I 
knew  her  in,  looked  very  attractive  to  me  in  a  general 
way,  though  not  at  all  conducive  to  any  immediate 
personal  passion. 

"Mary  rejected  you?"  I  said,  trying  in  my  heavy 
style  to  keep  up  the  jest. 

"Had  to,"  sa'id  Johnnie,  "because  we've  all  asked 
her.  All  but  Blake.  He's  the  only  one  that—" 
Here  he  stopped,  constrained,  I  saw,  by  decency,  and 
I  could  not  but  think  he  meant,  the  only  one  with 
any  chance.  And  immediately  I  felt  the  searching 
pang  of  sudden  jealousy,  put  on  my  hat  and  went 
home  to  see  Mary.  She  was  not  there.  I  knew  she 
wouldn't  be  at  that  hour  of  the  afternoon,  but  my 
instinct  had  been  to  get  at  once  on  her  track.  By 
the  time  she  did  come,  rather  wistful  because  she 
was  so  tired,  but  really  happy  in  that  she  carried  a 
bandbox  and  was  so  fain  of  it  she  had  to  open  it  in 
the  hall  and  show  me  her  fruit  plucked  from  the  tree 
of  life,  she  looked  her  old  dear  commonplace  self  to 
me,  not  at  all  a  Mary  to  burn  the  topless  towers  of 
anything  for;  but  all  the  same  I  was  still  hot  with 
jealousy.  The  raging  male  was  all  awake  in  me, 
sworn  to  have  her  lest  another  should.  At  that 
moment  I  would  have  fought  every  other  son  of  the 
pack  and  desired  her  —  until  I  forgot  they  wanted 
her. 

"See  my  hat,"  said  Mary. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  45 

It  was  a  modest  brown  thing  exactly  right  for  a 
serviceable  Mary,  turning  down  to  shade  the  eyes 
and  trimmed  with  a  soft  ribbon  that  wouldn't  muss 
except  under  the  greatest  provocation,  or  feel  the 
rain.  Under  the  practical  brim  her  kind  eyes  looked 
at  me  a  little  anxiously. 

"Am  Ir"  they  might  have  said,  "is  it  possible  I 
could  be  a  little  prettier  than  I  think  I  am?" 

"Mary,"  said  I,  "will  you  marry  me?" 

The  dear  maidenly  look  died  out  of  her  eyes,  and 
she  took  off  the  hat. 

"The  idea!"  said  Mary.  "Those  boys  have  been 
putting  it  into  your  head." 

"Nobody  has  put  it  into  my  head,"  said  I,  in  the 
wild  and  glorious  bombast  of  my  mood.  "Mary, 
you've  got  to  have  me.  I  shan't  let  you  alone  till 
you  say  yes." 

"Oh,  yes,  you  will,"  said  Mary,  rather  wearily. 
She  was  laying  the  baby  hat  back  in  its  box  with  a 
tenderness  that  indicated  she  had  an  unchanged  con- 
sideration for  it,  though  none  for  me.  "Have  you 
seen  Mr.  Blake  ?  He's  got  a  job  for  you  on  his  paper." 

"Don't  talk  to  me  about  Blake,"  said  I.  "I've 
no  use  for  him." 

Every  minute  I  was  growing  more  infantile  and  yet 
more  consistent  in  my  part. 

"No  use  for  Mr.  Blake?  Yes,  you  have,  too," 
said  Mary.  "Don't  be  a  silly." 

But  her  face  went  all  over  a  deep  miserable  red, 


46  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

the  hue  that  hurts  because  the  blood  that  hangs  out 
that  flag  knows  how  to  tell  the  brain  its  secret  is  abroad. 
I  ceased  my  stare  at  her  and  ran  up  to  my  room,  hurl- 
ing back  over  my  shoulder,  —  "I  never  shall  give  it  up." 

In  my  room  I  stood  at  the  window,  hands  in  my 
pockets,  and  glowered.  If  there  had  been  a  pack  of 
other  male  creatures  so  much  as  desiring  to  desire 
Mary,  and  I  had  had  them  out  there  in  the  dusty 
street  where  the  boys  were  beginning  marbles,  the 
carnival  of  spring,  I  knew  I  should  have  challenged 
them  all,  head  down,  bellow  war-defying,  and  we 
should  have  locked  horns  and  I  should  have  been  the 
conqueror.  I  felt  very  shaggy  and  savage  and  alto- 
gether invincible.  I  didn't  really  stop  to  think  at  all 
how  Mary  looked  to  me;  but  I  was  fighting  for  her 
and  I  liked  it. 

At  that  moment,  when  I  was  liking  it  most,  John 
Blake  appeared  in  my  doorway,  and  I  turned  upon 
him  with  a  dramatic  roughness  I  considered  rather 
well  done.  But  when  I  saw  how  tired  he  looked, 
ashen,  indeed,  with  that  almost  exultant  spark  he 
always  had  in  his  eyes  when  he  had  been  hammering 
at  his  verse,  the  fool  died  out  of  me  and  I  felt  my 
temperature  running  down  to  its  normal  degree  of 
very  serious  respect.  It  was  no  use  our  pretending, 
any  of  us,  that  Blake  wasn't  as  far  as  floating  clouds 
above  us,  and  that  we  didn't  regard  him  with  an  un- 
bounded fealty.  There  were  days  when  we  knew 
perfectly  well  he  wasn't  coming  near  us,  and  if  we 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  47 

met  him  we  needn't  speak ;  but  those  were  his  apoca- 
lyptic raptures.  He  withdrew,  we  felt,  into  a  high 
mountain,  and  there  the  burning  precepts  of  art  and 
beauty  were  delivered  to  him.  But  on  the  days  when 
he  was  slashing  his  verse,  already  in  the  rough,  and 
welding  and  fitting  it  to  deeper  harmonies,  we  might 
speak  to  him.  We  knew  he  was  still  at  one  with  us. 

"Do  you  want  a  job  ?"  asked  Blake. 

Only  that  morning  I  had  realized  that  my  little 
capital  was  dwindling  like  the  mischief.  I  had  been 
looking  into  the  jaws  of  a  world  singularly  unrespon- 
sive in  the  matter  of  bed  and  food. 

"  They've  started  another  fool  column  on  the  paper," 
said  he. 

"  Your  paper  ?    The  Bally  Thief  f  " 

He  passed  a  hand  over  his  tired  face  and  seemed  to 
wipe  from  it  the  remembrance  and  the  stress  of  the 
beautiful  things  he  might  be  doing  save  for  these  man- 
dates of  the  tiresome  day. 

"It's  book  reviews  and  a  letter  from  New  York. 
Do  you  want  it?" 

"I  don't  want  to  go  to  New  York,"  I  paltered.  My 
homely  corner  began  to  look  very  cosy  to  me,  on  ac- 
count, I  thought,  in  my  new-found  pose,  of  Mary. 

"You  needn't  go  to  New  York.  They  wouldn't 
know  what  to  do  with  stuff  written  on  the  spot.  Keep 
track  of  the  New  York  papers  and  fake  the  rest. 

"But  is  it—"  I  blurted  out,  "do  you  think  that's 
square?" 


48  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

He  hardly  looked  at  me.  Trumpets  were  calling 
him  or  small  sweet  pipes  to  far  dim  isles  of  harmony. 
The  time  given  to  the  crude  tasks  of  life  was  all  waste 
hours  to  Blake.  He  would  be  forever  in  seclusion 
learning  how  they  sang,  if  he  might,  they  who  sang  the 
songs  he  loved.  He  took  no  particular  notice  of  my 
question  except,  perhaps,  if  I  might  put  it  so,  the  out- 
side of  it.  Blake  would  have  slain  the  man  who  dared 
to  alter  a  line  of  Shelley.  I  have  heard  some  of  his 
remarks  on  gentlemen  who  ventured  to  do  it,  and  if  he 
had  written  them  down,  they  must  have  scorched  the 
page.  He  would  have  sat  up  all  night  and  many  a 
night  fussing  over  the  interpolation  of  a  comma  in 
Keats.  But  the  ways  of  earning  bread  by  manipulat- 
ing dull  things,  in  order  that  a  man  might  live  to 
write  big  verse,  these  he  regarded  drearily  indeed,  but 
as  not  even  touching  the  outmost  aura  of  the  globe  of 
life.  What  must  be,  must,  that  a  man  of  gifts  might 
eat  bread  enough  to  keep  up  to  the  mark  of  perceptive 
rhythm. 

"I  don't  know,"  said  he.  " You'll  have  to  settle 
that  for  yourself.  You  can  go  round  to  the  office  if 
you  want  to  know  any  more." 

I  did  go  round  within  an  hour,  saw  Wadham,  the 
frog-like  editor  and  publisher  in  one  skin,  he  of  the  light 
blue  eyes  and  stiff  hair  upstanding  and  the  aggressive 
spectacles.  All  of  us  knew  Wadham.  He  was  dis- 
gustingly rich  from  the  instinct  he  had  of  picking  up  the 
crumbs  and  cigar  ends  and  using  them  thriftily.  He 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  49 

could  never  have  edited  a  big  magazine,  but  he  was  the 
very  devil  of  cleverness  for  stealing  and  rehashing  other 
men's  editing.  At  once  on  hearing  of  the  place,  I  had 
a  passion  for  work,  and  not  even  he  could  quench  it  in 
me.  I  looked  upon  him,  perhaps  by  the  hypnosis  of 
my  admiration  for  Blake,  as  the  dull  ass  that  was  to 
carry  me  over  the  stream.  We  talked,  and  for  some 
obscure  reason  he  seemed  to  regard  me  as  a  find.  Per- 
haps Blake  had  said  artfully  hopeful  things  of  me,  the 
more  roseate  in  that  his  mind  was  jumping  away  from 
the  commonplace  to  the  gardens  he  was  always  grow- 
ing. Wadham  set  before  me  the  assurance  of  a  good 
weekly  sum,  and  I  ran  home  tickled  as  a  child  to  play 
with  my  new,  scarcely  worthy,  toy,  and  prove  myself. 
Something  was  bitter  in  me,  some  gall  of  discontent, 
because  I  knew  well  enough  the  fellows  did  not  prize 
me  save  as  the  chum  of  an  idle  hour.  I  had  simply 
done  nothing,  nor  did  I  in  my  shyness  talk  about  doing 
things,  and  I  had  no  special  line  of  arrogance.  It  was 
not  necessary  to  have  distinguished  yourself,  in  the 
Toasted  Cheese.  You  might  even  swear  yourself  blue 
with  the  desire  to  distinguish  yourself.  And  my  high 
resolves  on  a  stiff  course  of  reading  had  borne  no  bud. 
I  did  read,  I  did  cram.  But  the  pageant  of  the  day 
was  more  to  me  than  the  smell  of  age  and  ink.  I  tried 
to  beat  Blake  at  his  own  game,  or  to  run  neck  and  neck 
with  him.  Why  shouldn't  I  worship  and  suck  at  the 
seventeenth  century?  Why  shouldn't  I  be  conver- 
sant with  the  nicer  points  of  criticism?  But  it  was 


50  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

of  no  use.  My  heart  wasn't  in  it.  The  scholar's  metic- 
ulous pains  but  irritated  me.  I  didn't  care  whether 
Keats  was  born  within  a  twelvemonth  of  the  hour 
Blake  defended.  To  have  stood  on  the  precise  spot 
where  Dr.  Johnson  shed  his  filial  tears  would  not  have 
moved  me.  But  the  old  dog's  personality  did,  and 
Keats's  verse,  so  that  I  sat  up  at  night  raging  because 
I  couldn't  do  such  divine  stuff,  or,  indeed,  any  stuff  at 
all.  And  I  liked  to  walk,  to  pelt  through  a  snowstorm 
with  Mary  and  love  her  all  the  more  —  I  really  loved 
her  in  a  warm  way  if  I  didn't  feel  I  had  to  rush  her  off 
from  the  boys  —  when  the  snow  feathers  got  in  her 
neck  and  tickled  her.  A  robust  growth  of  the  boyhood 
I  never  had  came  back  to  me  in  the  company  of  Mary 
and  the  Toasted  Cheese,  and  I  got  boisterously  wild 
on  Christmas  Eve  when  we  ran  after  the  Waits  and 
put  our  pagan  noses  into  a  church  long  enough  to  smell 
the  evergreen.  Life  had  me  by  the  hah",  the  throat 
even ;  it  was  a  chance  whether  life  did  not  yet  lay  me 
by  the  heels.  And  all  the  time  Blake,  like  an  engine 
of  incalculable  power,  was  going  on,  beat,  beat,  doing 
his  abhorred  task  and  spilling  his  life  blood  over  the 
enchanted  page.  Sometimes  I  saw  the  verse  he  was 
writing.  He  had  no  shame  or  shyness,  as  he  had  no 
conceit.  These  lines  he  was  plucking  out  of  the  air, 
out  of  the  infinite  intention,  he  tremulously  hoped. 
Once  on  his  table  in  the  gnarled  small  script  of  his  hand, 
they  were  open  to  us  all,  as  much  our  property  as  his. 
Sometimes  I  thought  he  regarded  them  with  an  inno- 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  51 

cent  wonder.  They  seemed  to  him  so  dear,  so  exquis- 
ite, so  small,  like  indestructible  snow-wreaths  that  had 
somehow  taken  their  whirling  orbit  to  his  paper,  that 
I  believe  he,  in  his  humility  and  lack  of  self-appraise- 
ment, only  wondered  why  they  should  have  come  that 
way,  and  if  he  should  lose  them  in  the  warm  air  of 
praise.  And  about  this  time  it  was  that  uncle  Hardy 
died,  and  I  went  down  to  the  funeral  and  found  the 
widow  and  her  son,  he  half  my  age,  land  poor  and  deep 
in  debt.  So  I  sold  my  sad  old  farm,  crying  out  to  me 
from  every  windy  corner  to  come  back  and  talk  things 
over,  for  a  neat  but  inadequate  sum  of  ready  money, 
and  this  I  turned  in  toward  uncle  Hardy's  debts.  It 
might  have  been  more  if  I  had  waited  stolidly  and 
made  a  better  trade.  But  that  is  like  me,  —  ever  in  the 
haste  that  is  its  own  undoing.  They  looked  wan  and 
"wee"  to  me,  those  two,  as  I  had  felt  when  my  father 
and  mother  went  the  same  quick  gait;  and  besides 
I  was  in  a  cowardly  haste  to  get  away  from  the  appeal- 
ing face  of  meadow,  road,  and  brook,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  to  leave  the  mourners  not  uncomforted. 


VI 

I  DID  my  task  on  the  Bally  Thief,  trippingly  at  first, 
in  the  way  we  have  of  adventuring  a  new  thing,  and 
then  as  the  necessary  concomitant  to  getting  my  money. 
I  do  not  like  to  remember  how  long  a  time  I  did  it,  and 
this,  I  note,  is  the  first  trace  of  cowardice  in  my  con- 


52  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

fession.  For  though  I  used  those  years  in  warm  and 
innocent  living,  it  looks  to  me  now  as  if  I  ate  them  up 
in  waste,  as  the  spring  is  wasted  if  the  farmer  gathers 
but  does  not  sow.  I  was  enchanted  —  the  worn  word 
of  Johnnie  —  with  living,  and  highly  indulgent  of  my 
normal  tastes  in  it.  I  ought  to  have  bound  myself  to 
the  printed  page,  studied  languages,  forced  open  gates 
that  lead  to  the  world's  high  offices.  This,  if  I  was  to 
find  myself  ever  in  command.  But  I  read  only  the  books 
I  liked,  chiefly  poetry  which  I  grew  to  know  by  heart, 
and  turned  away  with  a  deft  persistency  from  mental 
discipline.  I  wrote  verse,  too,  when  my  blood  moved 
too  fast  for  prose,  insensate  stuff,  and  burned  it  when 
my  saner  mood  came  back.  Anything  did  for  a  starter : 
a  tramp  through  the  snow,  the  taste  of  frozen  apples 
on  the  tree,  the  tingling  of  the  stars,  Orion's  glorious 
regnancy.  My  verse,  I  suspected  even  then,  was  the 
flower  of  a  perfect  physical  health  that  went  to  my  head 
and  had  to  "out"  at  my  finger  tips,  since  I  couldn't 
be  forever  tramping. 

Time  stood  still  with  us.  Blake  withdrew  a  little 
more  persistently  to  his  attic,  and  it  smelled  the  more 
of  books.  The  Toasted  Cheese  changed  its  quarters 
two  or  three  times,  but  the  boys  kept  their  status  of 
vociferous  ambition  and  bald  accomplishment.  We 
felt  the  kick  of  our  legs,  and  we  were  young.  There 
was  time  to  burn.  Mary,  I  sometimes  thought,  looked 
thinner.  I  see  now  she  had  begun  to  show  the  pre- 
mature brutality  of  time.  And  that  was  as  it  had 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  53 

to  be :  for  she  was  the  only  one  of  us  who  loved  and 
suffered. 

One  spring  came  and  found  us  all  as  ready  as  ever  for 
our  little  games,  our  small  excursions  into  the  green  to 
come  back  with  waving  boughs  for  Mary  and  aunt 
Cely  —  this  on  the  days  when  Mary  had  extra  copying 
and  could  not  go.  Sometimes  Mr.  Haley  wanted  to 
go,  but  we  never  allowed  it  after  the  one  murderous 
moment  in  his  adopted  kiddy's  infancy  when  he  stood 
at  Blake's  elbow  all  through  a  slow-moving  and  apoca- 
lyptic sunset  and  told  us  how  well  the  baby  was  getting 
on,  and  how  you  couldn't  believe  but  these  artificial 
foods  were  more  or  less  dope  until  you'd  tried  them. 
We  all  had  a  chivalry  about  protecting  Blake  and  his 
perennial  conception  and  memorizing,  we  hoped,  of 
new-born  verse,  and  no  "bloomin'  he-incubator"  as 
Johnnie  called  Haley  was  allowed  to  approach  him 
after  that.  Blake  didn't  really  mind.  He  hadn't 
heard  it,  nor  did  he  hear  most  of  us  anyway :  but  it 
hurt  us  to  see  him  instigated  to  mind. 

Then  one  afternoon  Jake  Rand  went  down  to  Romney 
and  came  back  with  a  proposal  that  set  us  all  stark 
crazy.  It  was  long,  broad  country,  with  a  few  decent 
hills,  he  said,  a  great  deal  of  space  everywhere  because 
you  could  see  it  all.  Jakie  was  Cockney,  and  his 
descriptions  of  nature  were  seldom  lucid.  She  wouldn't 
have  known  her  face  after  he'd  done  with  her,  any  more 
than  some  of  you  would  under  the  veil  of  Blake's 
impressionism,  he  who  saw  her  as  the  child  of  God. 


54  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

But  the  point  of  Jake's  discovery  was  that  there  was 
an  old  yet  tight  and  praiseworthy  barn  down  there, 
once  used  by  a  colony  of  young  musicians,  when  a 
master  he  knew  had  taken  his  way  thither,  pupils  in 
his  train.  The  master  taught  no  more  now.  He  had 
gone  abroad  and  the  pupils  were  scattered,  but  the  barn 
remained  and  all  its  cubicles  where,  with  a  pallet  of 
husks  and  a  washstand,  we  could  ead  the  one  life 
and  gluttonize  on  air.  There  was  a  prime  boarding- 
house,  the  Apple  Tree,  not  half  a  mile  away,  and  there 
we  could  get  our  food.  We  gasped  and  accepted  it. 
The  simplicity  of  the  proposition  indicated  an  impera- 
tive beckoning  finger.  We  at  once  realized  how  cramped 
and  stultified  we  were  in  Burke  Street,  and  how  the 
walls  of  the  barn  opened  out  into  a  heaven  of  lethargy. 
Only  Mary  could  not  go  It  was  she  who  made  that 
discovery,  not  we,  who,  on  the  threshold  of  our  pilgrim- 
age, hailed  her  the  queen  of  it. 

"Why,  I  can't  go  down  there  with  you  boys,"  said 
Mary,  when  we  made  it  evident,  in  our  uncouth  and 
varying  fashions,  that  she  was  absolutely  one  of  us  and 
this  summer  business  included  her.  "I've  got  a  novel 
to  copy.  It'll  take  me  a  month." 

That  it  would  take  her  flying  fingers  the  half  of  that 
wasn't  true,  and  so  we  accepted  the  reason  behind  and 
groaned  over  it,  and  she  tried  to  comfort  us  by  saying 
we  could  bring  her  up  a  fresh  egg  now  and  then,  or  a 
clod  of  turf. 

All  this  time  I  had  been  doing  my  task,  the  more 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  55 

bunglingly,  because  Wadham  was  dissatisfied.  He 
wanted  a  lighter  touch,  more  "go,"  a  variety  of  facets 
that  I  didn't  cut  upon  my  work  because,  plainly,  I 
didn't  know  how.  I  didn't  suit  his  public.  But  then 
there  was  Blake  who  was  never  chidden.  How  could 
he  suit  it,  he  who  set  aside  his  vast  apprehension  of 
worlds  and  forgot  cryptic  phrases  to  collate  the  bald 
and  thuddy  things  philistia  took  with  gravity  ? 

"Oh,  well!"  said  he.  He  began  to  consider  the  stuff 
he  pieced  together,  to  consider  it  really  for  the  first  time, 
perhaps,  since  he  undertook  it,  and  this  only  to  drag 
me  out  of  my  bog.  Blake  was  very  accessible  to  hu- 
mans when  they  were  yelling  loud  enough  to  catch 
his  ear.  It  had  to  be  a  literary  difficulty,  though,  to 
haul  him  actually  back  from  the  dead  centuries,  nothing 
less.  If  you  were  hungry  or  cold,  he  would  empty 
his  pockets  for  you  and  walk  on.  But  the  written 
word  commanded  him.  "You  know  you  mustn't 
think  of  it.  If  you  do,  you  can't  do  it  at  all.  Get  a 
photographic  idea  of  what  Wadham  wants,  hang  it 
up  in  your  workroom,  and  set  your  brain  going  by  it. 
You  can  do  it  and  let  your  mind  off,  can't  you  ?  See 
how  a  man  uses  a  pickaxe  —  the  man  in  the  street,  not 
the  man  after  gold.  He  isn't  thinking  of  the  pickaxe. 
He's  conscious  of  Mary  Ann  somewhere,  or  wondering 
if  his  dinner  pail's  got  pie  in  it." 

"But  what's  the  matter  with  the  stuff?"  said  I. 

He  dragged  a  copy  of  the  Bally  Thief  out  of  my 
pocket  and  began  to  read  it  seriously.  I  could  see  he 


56  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

had  never  compassed  a  word  of  mine  before.  This  was 
meagre,  being  in  the  Thief y  but  it  was  mine,  and  the 
neglect  pricked  me.  I  thought  he  might  have  done 
it  because  it  was  mine,  to  test  my  mettle  and  smell 
out  the  good  in  me.  He  chucked  the  paper  back  into 
my  pocket. 

"Why,"  said  he,  "it's  old-fashioned." 

There  it  was  again,  the  stigma  coming  out  red  all 
over  me. 

"Wadham  wants  a  lighter  touch,"  I  said  weakly. 

"Oh,  he!  of  course  he  does.  He  wants  something 
mother  can  lay  on  the  kitchen  table  and  read  without 
difficulty  while  she  chops  the  hash.  Tell  him  to  shut 
up.  He'll  like  you  the  better  for  it.  But  you  are 
old-fashioned.  There's  no  doubt  of  it."  There  it  was 
for  the  third  time.  "You  could  write  perorations. 
You  know  how  they  used  to  go  booming  along.  Not 
all  of  them.  Once  or  twice  they  soared.  I  bet  you 
might  soar  a  little,  too." 

I  took  all  the  comfort  I  could  out  of  this  pinched 
encomium,  though  I  didn't  see  how  I  could  ever  soar. 
I  was  shy  before  the  flamboyant,  the  word  that  doesn't 
fit  our  every  day,  as  a  suburban  Odd  Fellow  shudders 
when  he  goes,  pompous  and  strutting,  down  the  street 
to  join  the  procession,  yet  knowing  the  stare  of  all  the 
wives,  the  very  moral  of  his  own  wife,  satirical  jades; 
is  upon  his  feather  and  the  gimcrackery  he  has  set  out 
to  play  in.  The  fear  of  slipping  over  the  boundary  of 
life  as  it  is  on  this  present  earth  was  ever  quieting  me. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  57 

If  I  began  to  write  and  a  showy  and  accepted  theat- 
ricality tried,  at  Wadham's  call,  to  clamber  into  it,  I 
had  to  stop.  My  pen  got  mawkish  and  wouldn't  work. 
I  felt  myself  a  fool.  Life,  I  knew,  was  an  immensity  of 
tragedy,  but  not  so  obvious,  so  clean  cut  round  the 
edges  as  Wadham  and  his  following  would  have  me 
think.  It  went  stalking  on,  hurling  out  retribution  in 
the  face  of  sin  —  which  was  only  an  imperfect  under- 
standing of  rules  —  and  in  the  long,  long  run  correcting 
sin,  but  this  only  by  heavenly  inconsistencies.  And 
since  it  was  all  a  matter  of  a  man's  own  deserts  and  the 
deserts  of  his  father  and  his  grandfather  and  the  blood- 
red  burden  they  bequeathed  to  him,  how  was  I  going 
to  write  neat  little  dramas  suited  to  the  apprehension 
of  Wadham's  circulation  and  his  wives  with  then*  minds 
on  bargain  day  and  the  lore  of  clothes?  Yet  I  made 
no  mistake  of  finding  myself  too  big  for  the  job.  I  was 
well  aware  that  minds  existed  so  sworn  to  simplicity,  to 
the  sympathetic  kindliness  of  knowing  what  other  folk 
feel  that  they  could  even  satisfy  Wadham,  though  in  a 
key  Wadham  himself  had  never  dreamt  of  playing  in. 
No,  I  wasn't  too  big  for  it.  I  was  simply  too  stiff,  too 
loutish  and  untrained  to  catch  the  step  of  life. 

One  morning  in  my  russet  mood  over  this  and  my 
lack  of  "go,"  I  wandered  down  to  the  North  End,  and 
there  at  a  corner  I  came  on  an  Italian  lad,  all  black 
eyes  and  shining  hair  and  sewer  mud  from  his  work, 
saying  good-by,  in  melting  intonations  and  musical 
vowels,  to  a  girl.  Over  that  one  man  played  the  in- 


58  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

herited  emotional  genius  of  a  nation  that  no  sooner 
feels  than  it  expresses,  and  indeed,  under  the  necessity 
of  expression,  embraces  the  histrionic  moment  with 
ardor,  give  it  ever  so  fleeting  a  cause.  This,  I  saw,  was 
no  parting  of  the  hour.  Some  fate,  some  grim  sibyl, 
had  stepped  between  these  two  and,  with  great  out- 
spreading palms,  was  thrusting  them  apart.  It  might 
have  been  a  sibyl,  or  it  might  have  been  a  sordid  task- 
mistress,  the  inexorable  mandate  from  the  lips  of  the 
world  that  bids  us  eat  and  see  to  it  that  we  provide 
enough.  The  boy  might  have  had  his  little  money 
stolen  by  some  bunco  banker  of  his  own  blood.  The 
girl  might  know  her  natural  guardians  were  waiting 
to  shuffle  her  hand  into  a  dry  weazened  one  that  yet 
could  play  the  game  of  chinking  coin.  I  turned  away 
from  them — indeed,  I  had  turned  away  instantly, 
having  no  business  in  their  solemn  fane  of  parting,  - 
went  home  and  wrote  it  down,  their  story,  in  a  patois 
of  illiterate  English  tailed  by  the  vowel  a.  This, 
though  having  no  special  belief  in  it,  I  carried  in  to 
Wadham  the  next  morning,  and  he  loved  it. 

"Do  me  a  dozen,  Redfield,  do  me  a  dozen/'  he 
wheezed,  his  blue  eyes  starting.  "  And  let  'em  end  well. 
Don't  have  any  tragedy.  Our  readers  don't  like  it." 

Well,  I  didn't  want  any  tragedy  myself,  if  I  was 
going  to  create  these  simple,  vulnerable  people  by  the 
gross.  Let  them  be  happy  if  they  could,  on  my  page 
at  least.  They  did  not  look  to  me  very  palpably 
happy  in  actuality.  At  that  time,  having  the  pristine 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  59 

strength  of  all  my  senses,  legs  adequate  to  run,  blood 
in  a  splendid  steady  rush,  I  hadn't  thought  much  about 
the  positive  happiness  sprung  from  a  vital  body  and 
desires  that  tally  with  the  earth's  great  promptings. 
That  was  my  commonplace.  Delight  lay  in  the  un- 
attained.  I  thought  nobody  could  be  happy  unless 
he  was  on  the  road  to  being  a  poet,  or  at  least  to  foot- 
hold on  some  terraced  height  of  art ;  and  my  Italians, 
as  I  saw  them,  lived  meagrely.  But  I  could  make 
stories  out  of  them  with  a  facility  that  surprised  me, 
and  I  did  it  without  a  thought  of  the  integrity  of  letters. 
I  could  paint  a  certain  kind  of  picture  in  little,  paint 
it  hastily,  but  so  it  caught  the  eye.  So  far  as  the  pains 
and  faithfulness  of  creation  went,  the  picture  was  a 
fake.  If  I  had  been  ambidextrous,  I  could  have  done 
two  at  once,  so  ready  was  my  brain,  and  Wadham 
would  pay  me  thirty  dollars  apiece.  This  was,  in  a  way, 
a  mechanical  facility.  Under  it  the  strangeness  and 
wonder  of  life  wrought  upon  me  movingly.  As  I  have 
said,  I  was  well  and  currents  ran  swiftly  to  my  brain 
and  carried  loud  news  of  the  outer  world.  The  chang- 
ing phases  of  the  world  were  tumultuous  and,  as  they 
concerned  me,  untried,  prophetic.  Sometime,  I  felt, 
an  avalanche  would  start.  A  whisper  would  release 
it  from  the  creative  stillness,  and  as  it  rushed  upon  me, 
I  should  know  it  was  an  avalanche  of  joy.  It  would 
overwhelm  me,  very  likely,  sweep  away  my  little  house 
of  life ;  but  being  joy  it  could  leave  me  for  a  century 
under  its  frigor  and  then  some  destined  spring  would 


60  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

come  and  I  should  rise  up  still  unchangeably  young — 
and  I  should  be  satisfied.  Timidly  I  told  Blake  some 
of  these  thoughts:  that  the  world  looked  to  me  like 
a  procession  of  flowers,  a  blossoming  so  fecund  that 
we  too,  being  its  children,  had  to  share  the  fruits. 
We  couldn't  be  disinherited.  He  wasn't  much  inter- 
ested, and  no  wonder:  for  by  word  of  mouth  this  mist 
of  feeling  got  laughably  thinned  out,  and  it  was  in 
itself  foreign  to  Blake's  conceptions.  He  never  com- 
plained of  the  present  state  of  things,  but  he  did  feel 
alien  to  it.  The  earth  as  God  sent  it  out  and  for  a 
good  many  aeons  afterward  drew  his  fancy  mightily. 
But  he  hated  the  horrible  artificial  barriers  man  has 
devised  in  his  honest  attempts  at  good  housekeeping. 
"You  can  look  at  the  stars,"  Blake  said,  "and  still  see 
God.  But  you've  got  to  keep  your  eyes  away  from 
men  and  their  damned  contrivances."  He  hated  the 
cumbrous  machinery  of  what  we  call  civilization;  but  if 
you  asked  him  how  we  were  going  to  exist  on  this  planet 
that  refuses  us  even  protection  from  the  cold,  without 
policemen  and  telephones  and  undertakers  and  the 
gross  burden  of  food,  he  would  swear  a  large  oath  and 
walk  off.  But  about  what  he  called  life,  in  his  larger 
sense,  he  was  ready  enough  to  talk.  He  held  that  all 
life  throws  off  life  by  the  energy  of  its  being,  and  he 
argued  that  humanity  had,  in  absolute  madness, 
woven  a  veil  for  the  face  of  nature  and  so  cut  itself  off 
from  the  apprehension  of  God.  It  had  fabricated  a 
scheme  of  religion  and  politics  and  social  ethics,  and  it 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  61 

would  have  been  nearer  God  if  it  had  staid  on  a  moun- 
tain top  with  a  shepherd's  crook. 

"Mount  Washington?"  Jakie  suggested.  "You 
couldn't  camp  out  on  mountain  tops  in  this  climate 
without  your  winter  flannels.  And  that  would  call 
for  a  woollen  factory  down  below,  and  an  express  to 
bring  you  the  flannels,  and  the  big  driving  wheel  would 
be  whirring  again." 

But  this  Jakie  said  with  a  sort  of  shamed  candor, 
because,  so  compelling  was  Blake's  personality,  that 
we  couldn't  flout  him  without  feeling  we  had  made  light 
of  something  that  had  a  mystic  value  in  unknown 
courts. 

"Poetry,"  I  ventured  humbly  to  suggest.  "Men 
made  poetry." 

"Poetry,"  said  Blake,  "is  a  dweller  in  the  air.  She 
lives  in  heaven  really,  but  when,  of  her  own  compassion, 
she  curves  nearer  us,  a  few  of  her  pinions  drop,  now  and 
then,  weighted  with  our  grime  —  the  smoke  of  our 
chimneys  where  we  make  things  to  keep  our  insides 
muddy — these  pinions  flutter  down  to  us  and  we 
snatch  at  them  and  stick  them  in  our  caps.  But  we 
no  more  see  Poetry  as  she  is  in  the  skyey  regions  where, 
a  maid  in  her  Father's  house,  she  wanders  at  her  happy 
tasks,  than  we  see  the  soul  here  clamped  into  a  gross 
body." 

I  accepted  what  he  said  about  poetry  as  I  should 
about  the  composing  of  music  and  everything  that  was 
immeasurably  above  me.  Poetry  was,  to  my  concep- 


62  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

tion,  an  ecstasy  of  divine  according,  a  stream  that 
flowed  without  let 'from  some  fount  of  sacred  lineage. 
I  didn't  quite  believe  that  poets  coaxed  their  inspira- 
tion and  turned  the  coat  of  a  phrase  and  made  it  over 
and  trimmed  it  here  and  there,  took  a  little  homesick 
adjective  out  of  one  line  and  gave  it  lodgment  in  another. 
When  Blake  was  hammering,  as  he  said,  I  thought  it 
was  his  bluff  way  of  characterizing  the  secondary  pains 
of  creation,  polishing  the  sword  that  has  been  welded, 
but  in  no  wise  altering  its  shape,  and  still  with  that 
big  cosmic  rage  of  certainty  and  intuition.  I  had  a 
queer  inner  rhythmic  life  of  my  own.  When  I  was 
afire  with  the  warm  blood  of  a  tramp  —  just  long 
enough  to  make  the  nerves  and  muscles  cry  for  more  and 
yet  not  long  enough  for  that  other  ecstasy  of  quies- 
cence and  the  apathy  of  tire  —  swift  phrases  came  to 
me  that  I  liked  to  repeat  to  myself  to  the  rhythm  of  it 
all,  the  motion  we  call  living.  But  I  humbly  never 
thought  of  them  as  neighbor  even  to  poetry.  They 
would  have  to  spring  full-fledged  from  the  Titan  work- 
shops of  inspiration  before  I  could  capture  them  and 
bring  them  into  the  market-place. 

I  was  working  hot  and  hard  now,  doing  my  stories 
of  Little  Italy,  and  Wadham  was  printing  them,  one  a 
week,  and  the  boys  were  clapping  me  on  the  back  and 
frankly  implying  they  didn't  know  I  had  it  in  me. 
They  didn't  specify  what  it  was  I  had  in  me:  some- 
thing, I  fancied,  they  didn't  wholly  respect.  Blake 
said  nothing.  One  day  when  they  had  been  pressing 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  63 

him  to  praise  me,  he  did  take  up  a  paper  and  run 
through  one  of  my  things.  But  his  face  never  changed 
beyond  its  dogged  and  kindly  earnest.  He  had  not 
much  opinion  of  prose  except  in  the  great  essays. 
Modern  scratching  seemed  but  to  deface  the  walls  of 
time, 

"You've  lost  your  old-fashioned  flavor,"  he  said, 
and  he  threw  the  paper  down. 

I  couldn't  tell  whether  he  considered  it  desirable  that 
I  should  have  lost  it.  Perhaps  he  thought  if  I  were 
patient  and  lived  out  the  normal  good  in  me  I  could 
write  an  essay.  And  then  the  incredible  happened. 
An  emissary  —  he  seemed  to  me  angelic  then,  though 
he  came  in  string  tie  and  eccentric  collar,  smoking  a 
cigarette  —  an  emissary  of  one  of  the  great  New 
York  magazines  came  to  our  door  and  was  let  in  by 
Mary.  He  wanted  me  to  write  some  more  Little  Italy, 
and  he  would  pay  me  such  a  price  that  I  leaped  at  the 
thought  of  a  velvet  dress  for  Mary  and  a  house  in  the 
country  to  be  known  as  the  Toasted  Cheese.  As  I  said, 
Mary  had  let  him  in,  and  she  came  up  to  my  room  and 
told  me  savagely  Fortune  had  arrived.  I  believe  she 
could  have  etherized  me  there  and  left  me  on  my  own 
bed  while  she  led  Blake  down  to  the  offer  of  rewards, 
if  that  could  be.  Mary,  like  all  of  us,  had  a  fury  of 
partisanship  for  Blake  up  there  in  his  workshop.  He 
would  never  advance  himself,  we  knew.  If  we  could 
have  pushed  him,  his  name  would  have  been  on  all  the 
literary  banners  of  our  tongue.  He  would  have  been 


64  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

famous  even  before  he  had  earned  it,  such  was  his 
personal  quality  and  the  integrity  of  the  promissory 
notes  that  inner  power  of  his  was  always  fluttering. 
At  any  rate,  I  was  made,  I  saw  with  a  kind  of  bewilder- 
ment, and  in  another  week  came  a  second  herald  from 
the  land  of  ink  and  I  was  made  again.  There  was 
never  anything  warmer  than  the  outcry  and  Growings 
of  the  boys  over  my  distinguished  luck.  I  deserved  it, 
they  said.  These  were  neat  little  tales,  one  or  more  with 
a  tendency  to  Maupassant  with  clothes  on ;  but  they  had 
to  allow  for  that  direct  and  subtle  combination  out- 
side the  knowledge  of  men,  known  as  luck.  It  had  to 
be  taken  into  account.  So  when  they  went  down  to 
Romney,  I  was  left  sticking  to  my  desk  like  a  fly  enam- 
oured of  the  ink-pot,  while  I  got  a  suitable  batch  ready 
for  my  publishers  to  bolt.  This  Blake  recommended. 
Editors  were  fickle,  though  passionate,  folk,  he  said. 
They  would  engage  without  qualifications  to-day  and 
to-morrow,  in  cooler  blood,  say  what  you  sent  was  not 
up  to  the  standard  of  the  sample  that  had  caused  you 
to  be  desired.  Therefore,  lest  some  newer  god  attract 
their  errant  fancy,  it  was  best  to  do  their  stunts  to- 
day. So  I  stayed  mewed  up  in  my  hot  room  and  aunt 
Cely  toiled  up  with  cool  drinks  and  Mary,  too,  after 
her  work  was  done  :  dear  Mary,  with  her  haggard  face 
and  her  mother  eyes  that  cried  for  assuagement  for  all 
the  children  of  men.  To-day  I  never  hear  ice  clinking 
when  weather  is  hot  or  answer  the  call  of  a  crackling  fire 
when  it  is  cold,  without  thinking  of  our  mothering  Mary. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  65 

We  had  letters  from  the  boys  in  the  barn.  They 
were  enchanted  with  it,  Johnnie  said.  They  had  at 
last  got  speech  with  the  Ivory  May. 

"  What's  this  ?"  I  was  trying  to  read  it  out.  Blake 
was  up  for  the  night  doing  some  proof  and  meaning 
to  curse  Wadham  on  the  morrow.  He  had  to  be 
brutal  with  him,  for  Wadham  would  have  turned  the 
Batty  Thief  into  all  kinds  of  a  fatuous  goat  with  bells 
and  ribbons  whenever  his  fancy  changed.  He  was 
mild  and  humble  before  Blake  though,  who  had  occa- 
sionally to  take  him  to  pieces  and  put  him  together 
again  lest  the  Thief  become  even  too  wobbly  for  his 
own  distinguished  services.  " What's  this?"  I  said. 
"It  looks  like  Ivory — Ivory  May?" 

"It's  a  girl  down  there,"  said  Blake.  He  was  tired 
and  was  smoking,  something  he  did  now  when  he  had  to 
reconcile  himself  in  some  special  way  to  life.  He  and 
Mary  and  I  sat  out  in  the  back  yard,  and  the  moon 
was  over  us  and  a  piano  execrably  strummed  Egmont, 
and  aunt  Cely  within  pared  pineapples  for  the  pre- 
serving. 

"Pretty?"  said  Mary. 

This  was  quick  as  lightning.  I  thought,  as  she 
pounced,  she  looked  jealously  at  Blake.  For  he  had 
just  come  from  the  atmosphere  of  the  Ivory  May. 
He  gave  her  no  satisfaction,  though  this  was  not  by 
intent,  but  only  because  he  was  tired. 

"Elkins"  —  this  was  the  artist  among  us  who  had 
a  color  theory  and  couldn't  draw — "Elkins  says  her 


66  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

color's  remarkable.  She's  very  slim.  Waist  no  bigger 
than  your  wrist"  -I  could  see  Mary  picturing  his 
sacred  hand  held  out  to  span  it — "  Yellow  hah-  —  no, 
golden.  And  a  blanched  ivory  look.  You'd  think 
it  would  be  unhealthy.  But  it's  not.  It's  very 
effective." 

I  laughed,  to  lighten  Mary  up. 

"She  might  be  a  tapestry,"  said  I. 

"So  she  is.  She's  decorative.  She's  somebody's 
companion  or  secretary  or  nurse,  and  she  totes  the  old 
lady  in  a  wheeled  chair.  Jakie  trails  along  after  her. 
So  does —  by  George,  I  believe  they  all  do." 

"How  does  the  old  lady  like  it?"  asked  Mary  cut- 
tingly. 

"She  likes  it,  on  the  whole.  She's  got  something 
the  matter  with  her  speech,  but  she's  the  dickens  for 
curiosity.  Jakie  tells  her  anything  that  comes  into  his 
head.  She  had  one  of  your  stories,  Redfield,  open  on 
her  knee.  Jakie  told  her  you  got  five  to  seven  hundred 
apiece  for  'em.  When  you  coming  down?" 

"To-morrow,"  said  I.  It  was  really  without  refer- 
ence to  the  girl  all  gold-colored  hair  and  whiteness.  I 
had  finished  my  present  job  and  I  was  sick  of  the  city, 
of  Wadham  and  my  pretty  prospects.  Only  it  seemed 
a  pity  to  leave  Mary  alone  in  the  dust  and  heat.  "But 
what  is  it  they  call  her  ?"  I  went  back  to  it  and  to  the 
letter.  "  Ivory  May.  Is  May  her  name  ?  " 

Blake  was  on  his  feet  now,  staring  at  the  moon,  not 
Mary,  and  Mary  looked  wistfully  at  him,  seizing  the 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  67 

chance  because  he  also  might  go  on  the  morrow,  and 
his  every  gesture  even  she  wanted  to  have  thriftily 
by  heart. 

" That's  Jake.  He's  just  found  out  'may'  is  archaic 
for  maid,  and  he's  running  it  hard." 

" What's  her  real  name?"  asked  Mary,  pat  on  the 
heels  of  this.  I  thought  she  hoped  it  was  Sapphira 
at  the  least.  But  Blake  didn't  remember,  and  when 
he  told  her  so,  she  smiled. 


VII 

HER  name  was  Mildred  Lee.  I  went  down  to  Romney 
the  next  day  —  though  urged  by  no  curiosity  to  see 
her  —  and  found  the  boys  lying  round  on  new-mown 
hay :  for  Johnnie  McCann  had  borrowed  a  scythe  and 
hacked  off  about  a  quarter  of  an  acre  of  grass,  and  the 
fragrance  of  it  had  got  into  their  nostrils  and  their 
imagination,  and  they  couldn't  have  enough  of  it.  The 
barn  was  a  delightful  place,  a  gallery  built  round  it 
inside  and  little  cubicles  opening  from  it  like  monkish 
cells,  each  with  a  window  to  a  view  over  the  incredibly 
green  fields.  I  felt  the  old  country  allurement,  its 
tyranny  upon  me  at  once,  the  aching  ecstasy  of  home, 
and  also  the  conviction  of  the  boy  brought  up  on  a 
farm  and  never  quite  escaping  that  before  playtime  he 
has  got  to  rake  the  grass  and  feel  the  stubble  toughen- 
ing his  toes,  and  know  again  the  thirst  of  the  sweltering 
day  and  the  taste  of  warm  " sweetened  water"  under 


68  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

a  tree.  It  had  had  a  different  effect  on  the  others. 
They,  being  town  bred,  took  it  as  they  saw  it,  a  picture 
made  for  playtime,  and  determined  on  founding  a 
brotherhood,  of  themselves  alone,  so  far  as  I  could  see, 
and  living  here  in  the  shade  of  trees,  listening  to  a 
perennial  thrush  in  an  unfading  wood  and  going  once 
a  day  to  the  Apple  Tree  to  dinner,  and  once  to  intercept 
the  Ivory  May,  when  she  conducted  her  charge  to  take 
the  air.  I  reminded  them  that  the  trees  they  laid  lien  on 
for  a  hospitable  roof  would  in  December  be  the  "  bare 
ruined  choirs  "  that  yield  no  shelter  from  the  snow  they 
were  not  reckoning  with.  But  they  told  me  to  shut  up 
and  sank  back  into  their  lethargy  of  summer  realized, 
and  I  could  see  that  time  was  not  for  them  because  the 
present  did  supremely  well.  We  lay  on  the  grass  that 
morning  and  talked  intermittently  and  foolishly. 
Jakie  was  caught  by  the  aura  of  my  glory  in  short 
stories,  and  was  writing  some  of  his  own.  But  they 
wouldn't  do  because  he  had  the  teasing  James  habit, 
and  they  were  full  of  " lucidity"  and  the  antiphonal 
chant  of  "wonderful."  Blake  had  told  him  it  wouldn't 
do,  Blake  who  read  Mr.  James  not  for  business  but  in 
a  wild  and  glorious  debauch,  he  loved  him  so,  and  who 
had  the  sense  to  know  we  groundlings  never  could 
adequately  do  the  trick.  But  Jakie  was  not  to  be 
deterred.  He  was  hammering  away  at  a  sketch  of  an 
old  lady  who  had  a  likeness  to  a  gargoyle  on  Notre 
Dame  and  had  conceived  a  hatred  for  her  niece  who 
featured  an  angel  there.  Nobody  could  tell  what  it 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  69 

was  about,  to  speak  humanly,  or  what  the  outcome 
proved  to  be,  which  was  the  point,  Blake  said,  of  sorry 
difference  between  Mr.  James  and  his  following.  You 
could  always  tell  what  Mr.  James  was  about,  if  you 
lived  long  enough,  though  not  all  of  it.  You  were 
likely  to  discover  a  year  or  two  after  you  had  run  over 
the  fine  lines  of  the  palimpsest  that  there  were  equally 
fine  ones  underneath.  These  things  we  talked  of  that 
morning  as  we  spread  ourselves  on  the  drying  grass 
and  I  nuzzled  it  and  Jakie  read  his  stuff  and  nobody 
but  me  listened  because  they  had  heard  it  several  times 
before.  I  told  him  it  was  good,  my  drowsy  eyes  shut 
and  my  lying  mouth  down  in  the  grass. 

"It's  not,"  said  Jakie.    "You  know  it,  too." 

"Maybe  I  do,"  said  I,  out  of  the  grass. 

"But  when  it  comes  to  that,  your  own  Little  Italy 
stuff  ain't  worth  shucks,"  said  Jakie.  "It's  a  crying 
shame  to  take  money  for  it." 

"Oh,  I  know  it,"  said  I.  And  really  I  did.  It 
was  incarnate  wonder  to  me  to  think  of  the  configura- 
tion of  the  heads  that  wanted  my  Little  Italy. 

"It's  false,  that's  what  it  is,"  said  Jakie,  raging. 
"False  from  nave  to  chime.  You  haven't  got  inside 
that  organ  and  monkey  contingent  down  there.  You 
don't  live  under  their  skins.  You  never  even  went 
there  for  a  dish  of  macaroni." 

"I  know  that,"  said  I.  The  sun  had  got  to  my 
knees,  my  face  was  in  a  green  shadow,  and  the  scent 
of  earth  was  in  my  nostrils  and  the  birds  sang. 


70  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"By  golly!"  said  Tilford  Weston.  He  was  a  con- 
scientious little  fellow  grinding  out  household  notes 
for  the  Kitchen  Friend,  and  hoping  to  rise  to  editorial 
work  and  have  his  lass  come  home  from  the  West  to 
marry  him.  "  There  she  is." 

Instantly  they  were  on  their  feet,  and  I  was  on 
mine,  from  the  mere  force  of  example,  as  men  eat 
oatmeal  or  go  to  war. 

" What  is  it?"   I  inquired. 

They  paid  no  attention  to  me.  They  walked  in  a 
body  straight  across  the  field  and  over  a  stone  wall, 
and  I  followed.  If  there  were  going  to  be  more  scents, 
more  birds  or  any  added  affluence  of  spring,  I  meant 
to  be  first  at  the  fount.  Then  I  saw  her  coming  along 
the  country  road,  Mildred  Lee,  walking  beside  the 
wheeled  chair  where  her  charge  grotesquely  reigned. 
Mildred  had  one  hand  upon  the  chair  as  if  she  guided 
it  through  some  force  of  inner  magic  :  for  the  actual 
propulsion  was  accomplished  by  him  we  knew,  Johnnie 
McCann,  who  had,  the  others  saw  ragingly,  bought 
off  the  customary  man  and  piously  fallen  into  his 
place.  A  hatred,  livid  as  the  constraining  spark  of  a 
million  feuds,  came  upon  our  men,  hatred  for  Johnnie 
who  had  done  them  and  who  was  serenely  tooling 
along,  piety  and  softness  upon  his  lips  and  the  devil's 
own  spark  in  his  eyes,  for  he,  too,  knew  they  had 
been  done.  But  after  bareheaded  prostrations,  so 
deep  were  they,  to  the  old  creature  of  the  chair  and 
the  picture  of  youth  and  spring  that  walked  beside, 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  71 

they  fell  upon  Johnnie  with  chorusing  protests  of  false 
friendship. 

"That's  too  heavy  for  you,  old  man,"  saidWeston 
meltingly.  "Give  me  a  hold." 

And  Jakie  took  a  hold  without  asking.  But  no- 
body had  presented  me,  and  I  walked  along,  saying 
nothing;  but  as  I  walked  I  looked  with  the  instancy 
of  the  man  who  sees  no  possibility  of  doing  otherwise, 
at  Mildred  Lee.  I  have  in  my  mind  to-day  the  picture 
of  her  as  she  walked  under  the  trees :  a  girl  in  seem- 
ing, though  really  she  was  a  little  older  than  I,  a  girl 
with  a  pale  face  of  an  enchanting  shape,  especially 
about  the  chin,  blue  eyes  —  not  warm  eyes  but  such 
as  might  hold  reserves  of  light  behind  them  —  and  a 
careless  way  of  using  a  red-lipped  mouth,  —  not  a 
full  mouth,  none  of  the  bud  about  it,  or  the  pout  of 
provocation,  the  "Don't  you  wish  you  might,  sir," 
that  nature  sets  upon  some  rose-red  mouths  in  spite 
of  them.  This  way  with  her  mouth  —  I  can't  really 
explain  it,  but  it  was  as  if  she  knew  and  yet  was  not 
vain  of  the  exceedingly  perfect  teeth  within,  and  so 
might  show  them  in  full  flood  of  laughter  or  let  them 
peep  as  they  would.  And  as  I  looked  at  her,  I  thought 
she  once  or  twice  glanced  at  me  with  a  welcoming 
grace,  as  if  introductions  didn't  matter,  but  at  the 
same  time  she  owed  me,  of  her  plenty,  a  welcome  to 
the  house  of  spring  and  all  the  gay  world  of  which  she 
was  rightful  chatelaine.  The  burden  in  the  chair, 
Miss  Harpinger,  I  heard  her  called,  was  coquetting 


72  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

with  Jakie  who  was  playing  up  to  her  brazen  assaults 
for  gallantry  in  order,  it  was  plain,  to  keep  on  her 
right  side,  which  was  the  side  of  him  who  should  push 
the  chair  next  time.  Mildred  Lee  was  telling  Weston 
she  knew  about  his  household  work.  She  said  she'd 
been  asking  the  cook  at  the  Apple  Tree  how  many 
things  could  be  made  with  corn  meal.  There  were 
dozens  of  them.  The  cook  would  lend  him  her  book, 
and  he  could  make  almost  a  column,  she  was  sure. 
Her  voice  —  I  pondered  upon  that.  It  was  low  and 
of  an  excellent  quality,  but  there  was  also  something 
resonant,  metallic,  golden,  I  thought.  This,  I  told 
myself,  was  the  well  of  reserve  in  her  nature,  what,  in 
spite  of  that  graciousness,  due  to  the  need  of  others, 
hid  the  sweet  warm  springs  of  her  own  beauty.  I 
fell  behind  them,  and  with  an  instinct  that  rose  from 
the  propulsion  of  my  blood  toward  the  spring  and 
toward  her  who  was  the  priestess  of  it,  I  gathered 
maple  twigs  from  the  saplings  by  the  way,  and  plaited 
a  garland,  and  this  I  brought  her,  holding  it  in  both 
hands.  And  without  a  blush  or  the  trembling  of  her 
dignity,  she  bent  her  head  a  little,  as  one  used  to 
crowns,  and  I  set  it  on  the  gold  of  her  hair,  and  it 
fitted,  every  leaf  of  it,  to  the  hollows  and  shines  be- 
neath. I  was  not  deft  with  my  hands,  but  this  had 
been  a  special  commission  from  the  god  of  luck  who 
put  the  pretty  task  upon  me,  and  he  had  directed  me 
and  I  had  scored.  The  boys  looked  on  and  envied  a 
little  yet  admired  more,  as  we  must  when  some  one 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  73 

has  done  a  better  thing  than  we  think  to  do.  They 
were  chiefly  proud  of  me  as  the  one  of  them  who  had 
thought  to  crown  the  spring.  Once  Mildred  came  to 
the  front  of  the  wheeled  chair  to  tuck  the  light  rug  over 
Miss  Harpinger's  feet,  and  the  old  lady  caught  sight  of 
the  green  circlet  on  the  golden  head. 

" What's  that,  Miss  Lee?"  she  had  to  know,  " what's 
that?  Has  everybody  got  crowns  on?  Nobody's 
given  me  a  crown." 

Whereupon  she  simpered,  and  Johnnie  McCann 
was  the  only  one  who  had  the  spirit  to  rush  into  the 
brake  and  bring  an  apple  bough  and  present  it  fatu- 
ously, kneeling  in  the  dusty  road.  He  told  her  it 
was  her  sceptre,  and  whatever  she  commanded  we 
must  do.  I  have  never  seen  a  more  unhappy  spec- 
tacle than  that  of  old  Mary  Harpinger  in  her  wheeled 
chair,  playing  the  game  of  youth.  She  was  inert  and 
heavy  —  afterward,  when  I  knew  her,  I  found  she 
had  an  eager  interest  in  her  food —  and  she  cherished 
an  avid  curiosity  about  the  smallest  happenings  of 
life.  If  one  could  have  thought  her  mind  a  little 
faded,  compassion  might  have  taken  the  place  of  a 
quick  aversion  to  her.  We  might  have  seen  the  in- 
evitability of  the  erring  track  of  her  mind,  and  tried 
to  shade  it  with  the  green  boughs  of  a  pitying  toler- 
ance. But  she  had  all  the  mind  she  ever  had,  pre- 
sumably, only  she  had  let  the  fair  flowers  of  aspira- 
tion go  quite  to  waste,  and  choked  herself  with  the 
coarse  weeds  that  flourish  in  decay.  I  could  hardly 


74  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

bear  to  think  of  what  must  be  the  suffering  of  a  nature 
like  Mildred  Lee's,  almost  too  fragile  in  its  delicacy  of 
perception  and  desire,  under  the  daily  attrition  of 
this  service.  I  thought  it  accounted  for  what  I  called 
the  veil  of  her  face  and  manner,  something  shielding, 
guarding  the  blossomy  currents  within,  the  wells  of 
living  water  that  such  feet  might  foul.  She,  the  real 
Mildred,  seemed,  not  to  be  in  hiding  —  there  was 
nothing  furtive  about  it  —  but  behind  a  barrier.  I 
could  see  how  her  high  maiden  honor  dwelt  there 
proudly  alone,  with  the  tawdry  clamor  of  Mary  Har- 
pinger's  remembered  scandals  and  appetite  for  fresh 
ones  surging  about  it,  up  to  its  very  portals,  like  a 
turgid  stream  going  nowhere.  Altogether  the  seeing 
her  was  almost  more  painful  than  joyous,  as  you 
might  go  on  a  pilgrimage  to  a  statue  foreshadowed  in 
your  dreams,  and  find  it  in  process  of  siege  by  a  brutal 
soldiery.  We  went  back  to  the  Apple  Tree  with  her, 
and  when  we  left  her,  she  gravely  calm  and  Mary 
Harpinger  ogling  to  the  last,  I  turned  away  with  a 
great  and  exalted  sadness  on  me.  I  wondered  how 
Blake  could  have  described  her  as  he  did,  with  a  com- 
monplace touch,  how  he  should  have  spoken  of  her 
at  all,  she  belonged  so  to  the  great  sacred  silences. 
The  others  did  not  feel  this  as  I  did.  They  talked 
and  chaffed  and  tossed  their  hats  at  butterflies,  and 
when  they  were  out  of  sight  of  the  house,  fell  upon 
Johnnie  who  had  pushed  the  chair  and  buffeted  him 
full  sore.  But  I  could  not  talk.  I  had  seen  Mildred  Lee. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  75 

VIII 

THAT  afternoon,  when  the  first  warmth  had  gone, 
I  left  the  fellows  and  went  again  into  the  road,  with 
a  presentiment  that  I  should  see  her.  Back  and 
forth  from  the  willow  trees  to  the  maples  I  walked, 
almost  in  sight  of  her  house  at  the  one  end  and  our 
barn  at  the  other,  and  as  I  did  this,  always  with  an 
expectant  heart,  I  saw  her  coming.  She  wore  the 
same  white  dress,  and  over  her  shoulders  a  little  scarf 
of  faintest  blue.  As  I  went  forward  to  her,  she  was 
charmingly  though  not  warmly  smiling,  and  a  pace 
away  she  put  out  her  hand.  Neither  of  us,  I  thought, 
was  hindered  in  swift  friendliness  by  not  having  been 
named  to  each  other  in  the  common  way.  We  seemed 
to  have  prescience,  as  of  those  who  had  to  meet.  I 
turned  about  with  her,  and  we  walked  on,  I  very  happy 
in  a  fashion  I  had  not  known.  Only  I  wished  afterward 
Egerton  Sims  could  have  been  there  and  shared  my 
delight  in  her  and  the  honor  of  my  state.  She  often 
came  out,  she  said,  for  a  little  walk  when  Miss  Har- 
pinger  was  asleep.  It  was  her  only  time.  I  kept 
myself  from  saying  how  horrible  Miss  Harpinger 
seemed  to  me,  and  she  went  on  into  the  boundaries 
of  my  own  life,  as  if,  to  please  me,  we  must  talk  of 
me. 

"I've  been  reading  your  Little  Italy." 

I  wondered  how  she  had  come  on  Wadham's  banal 
publication,  and  she  explained  that  the  boys  had 


76  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

loaned  her  a  copy  or  two  among  other  things  to  read 
to  Miss  Harpinger.  They  had  had  a  couple  of  copies 
perhaps  and  then  Miss  Harpinger  sent  for  more  —  for 
a  file,  in  fact.  I  felt  a  sudden  distaste  at  having  the 
Little  Italy  side  of  me  the  one  she  was  to  know.  I 
implied  that  I  didn't  think  much  of  those  enterprises. 

"Oh,  but  the  big  magazines  think  something  of 
them,"  she  reminded  me.  "  You've  had  splendid 
offers." 

The  big  magazines,  I  told  her,  even  they,  wanted 
to  print  what  the  many-headed  liked  to  hear.  They'd 
shave  a  good  many  corners  of  popularity  before  they'd 
throw  out  what  the  many-headed  were  barking  for. 

"But  it's  a  splendid  chance,"  she  insisted.  "Now 
you  can  get  anywhere." 

This,  instead  of  glorifying  my  outlook,  depressed 
me  instead,  until  I  reflected  that  the  goddess  of  spring 
need  not  necessarily  be  endowed  with  all  gifts,  among 
them  a  correct  literary  taste. 

"Blake  doesn't  think  anything  of  them,"  I  said. 
"You've  seen  Blake." 

I  felt  that  was  enough.  Her  brows  drew  together 
slightly  at  the  mention  of  Blake,  and  immediately  I 
wondered  whether  there  were  something  in  him  that 
did  not  march  with  the  most  crystalline  ideals.  Yet 
not  so,  for  Mary  loved  him.  Mary  would  have  rushed, 
tooth  and  claw,  upon  any  who  denied  his  poetic 
and  unimpeachable  godhead.  Mildred  Lee  hesitated 
before  answering,  and  then  she  seemed  to  be  stepping 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  77 

round  Blake  delicately  as  a  feline  creature,  observing 
him  from  every  point. 

"A  man  might  write  splendid  poetry,  mightn't 
he,  and  yet  not  be  a  critic?"  This  she  put  to  me 
with  a  highly  flattering  implication  of  my  infallibility. 

"Oh,  yes/'  I  said.  "But  Blake  knows  such  a  lot. 
He  goes  digging  into  the  centuries.  If  there's  any- 
thing there,  in  any  rubbish  heap,  Blake's  sure  to  find 
it." 

"But  mightn't  that  make  him  all  the  more  unlikely 
to  understand  his  own  century?" 

It  might,  but  try  as  I  would  I  could  not  snatch 
content  from  her  charming  consolation.  I  knew 
Blake.  But  I  wanted  her  to  talk  about  other  things 
that  she  only  knew.  I  could  test  literature  in  its 
shop,  take  it  from  the  lips  of  its  disciples ;  but  I  wanted 
this  creature  made  of  such  rare  sweetnesses  to  tell  me 
how  she  juggled  the  spring  into  coming,  what  she 
heard  from  the  birds  that  morning,  where  the  fairy 
queen  was  at  this  moment.  I  wanted  her  to  sing  to 
me  "old,  far-off,  forgotten  things."  I  knew  she  could 
sing,  perhaps  in  strange  intervals  with  that  low  moving 
voice  of  hers,  intervals  the  world  has  forgotten  in  its 
march  from  fairyland.  (As  a  matter  of  experience 
and  after  proving,  Mildred  Lee  could  not  sing;  but 
that  made  no  difference  to  my  assumptions  that 
afternoon.)  But  she  was  talking  again  by  implica- 
tion about  Blake  and  me,  ranging  us  side  by  side. 
She  was  not  so  sure  of  the  value,  she  said,  of  these 


78  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

researches  into  the  past.  Give  her  a  live  man's  im- 
pressions of  the  world  as  it  is. 

"But  that  isn't  my  Little  Italy  stories,"  I  told 
her  sadly,  and  yet  with  a  tender  gratitude  for  her 
championship.  "They're  not  real.  They're  a  kind  of 
fake." 

She  shook  her  head. 

"That's  your  modesty,"  said  she.  "The  publishers 
know,  or  they  wouldn't  be  ready  to  exploit  you." 

I  dragged  her  away  from  Little  Italy,  dragged  her 
by  the  main  force  of  insistency.  I  was  determined  to 
know  things  about  her,  and  since  I  was  sure  no  such 
creature  as  she  would  feel  tenderness  for  Mary  Har- 
pinger,  I  asked  her  bluntly— 

"Do  you  like  Miss  Harpinger?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  she,  in  the  unmoved  monotone  of 
her  sweet  voice.  "She's  very  nice." 

Then  I  saw  loyalty  constrained  her,  but  I  pushed 
on  into  the  breach. 

"It's  a  horrible  thing,"  I  said  hotly,  "horrible,  for 
you  to  be  tied  to  a  creature  like  that." 

She  put  out  her  hand.  I  thought  for  a  happy 
moment  of  implied  intimacy  she  was  about  to  lay  it 
on  my  arm.  But  it  was  only  a  girl's  movement,  un- 
considered,  free,  and  she  withdrew  it. 

"How  good  you  are,"  she  said. 

It  would  be  of  no  use  for  me  to  try  recording  the 
things  we  said  that  day,  on  that  walk  of  perhaps  an 
hour,  but  the  hour  was  painted  for  me  in  fadeless 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  79 

hues,  not  the  prismatic  glitter  of  youth,  but  all  the 
soft  and  gentle  lendings  of  accumulated  memories  of 
poetry  and  song.  Whatever  I  had  learned,  whatever 
I  unconsciously  aspired  to,  broke  into  blossom  that 
day,  or  crested  in  rainbow  colors  on  the  sea  of  life.  I 
knew  nothing  about  the  seventeenth  century;  but  I 
had  attained.  We  parted  at  the  turn  of  the  road, 
for  I  could  see  she  hesitated  at  having  me  go  farther, 
and  I  could  fancy  Mary  Harpinger  risen  from  her 
nap  and  cackling  at  the  window  over  her  companion's 
acquisition  of  a  young  man.  There  was  in  my  atti- 
tude the  passionate  implication  and  the  acquiescence 
in  hers  that  we  were  to  meet  again.  I  stood  at  the 
turn  and  watched  her,  and  she  waved  her  hand  to  me. 
Then  I  took  an  hour's  walk  by  myself,  plunging  through 
fields  and  once  encountering  a  marsh,  because  the  road, 
with  its  possibilities  of  one  or  two  passers,  looked  too 
populous,  and  I  got  home  to  the  barn  to  find  the  boys 
in  riotous  concoction  of  a  gigantic  rarebit  made  out 
of  all  the  cheese  in  the  neighborhood.  I  was  morose 
to  a  ridiculous  degree.  They  could  not  stir  me  out 
of  my  sulks,  and  when  Jakie  tipped  a  wink  at  Johnnie 
McCann  and  said,  "He's  got  it  bad,"  I  laid  my  hand 
incidentally  on  the  stick  somebody  had  cut  in  a  walk 
and  gripped  it,  feeling  temporary  easement  in  know- 
ing I  was  big  enough  to  warm  them  both. 

The  next  day  was  a  gray  day,  although  the  sun  shone 
to  a  marvel,  because  Miss  Harpinger  had  an  indiges- 
tion, and  Mildred  Lee  just  looked  out  of  doors  for  five 


80  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

minutes  on  me  hanging  like  a  fool  in  the  croquet-con- 
secrated yard ;  and  that  night  Blake  came.  The  boys 
must  have  told  him  about  my  deplorable  state,  for  he 
was  very  kind  to  me  in  a  gentle,  considering  way.  It 
was  almost  as  if  he  saw  me  in  a  nearer  perspective  than 
he  had  since  that  night  when  he  had  hope  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  After  it  had  grown  dusk  and  the  moon 
came  out  distractingly  splendid,  he  sauntered  to  the 
door  and  called  me. 

"Come  on  out,  Redfield.  There's  something  doing 
here." 

I  went,  relieved  to  flee  the  rest  of  them  who  were 
ignoring  the  moon  and  torturing  a  mandolin  nobody 
knew  how  to  play,  yielding  it  from  hand  to  snatching 
hand.  Blake  and  I  struck  into  the  road  and  began 
to  walk  at  a  good  pace.  I  watched  the  darkness  with 
straining  eyes,  and  my  face  grew  hot  at  the  thought 
that  she,  too,  might  escape  for  a  fit  communion  with 
Diana.  She  could  not  —  and  yet!  Blake  began  to 
talk,  and  to  my  amazement  he  was  confiding  in  me. 
He  was  writing  a  play,  a  play  in  blank  verse  of  an  ideal 
kingdom  governed  by  a  regent,  the  mother  of  the  young 
prince,  and  really  governed  by  the  young  poet  who  had 
resung  the  old  folk-songs  of  the  harvest  field  and  the 
plough  and  let  the  songs  of  steel  and  valor  crash  into 
oblivion.  And  this  was  Arcady  until  the  brutal  world 
and  war  came  hurtling  in,  and  Arcady  went  down  be- 
cause the  world  is  not  yet  ready  for  it.  I  was  listening, 
although  my  eyes  were  still  straining  for  Mildred  Lee 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  81 

and  my  heart  beat  madly  for  her.  Whatever  your 
mood,  Blake  had  to  be  listened  to.  He  was  so  great 
that  his  call  had  to  be  answered  like  the  call  of  kings, 
or  the  bugle  that  summons  an  army.  Wouldn't 
Napoleon's  army  rise  now  if  the  bugle  sounded  ?  The 
soldiers  may  be  asleep  or  dead,  but  they  come.  There 
are  those  men  whose  inner  force  is  so  potent  that  they 
have  to  be  listened  to.  It  was  not  vanity  in  me, 
though  I  might  have  been  proud  to  be  singled  out  for 
Blake's  confiding.  It  was  because  this  was  Blake. 
Afterward  I  suspected  him  of  breaking  his  rule  of  soli- 
tary conception  because  they  had  told  him  I  was  under 
the  madness  of  foolish  first  love  and  he  generously 
wanted  to  recall  me  to  what  seemed  to  him  the  greater 
mystery. 

"It  must  be  stunning,"  I  said  at  last,  when  he  had 
worked  up  one  of  his  scenes  for  me. 

For  answer  he  did  what  I  had  never  known  Blake 
to  do  before.  He  began  repeating  his  poetry,  not 
spouting  it,  as  we  might  irreverently  have  said  of  a 
lesser  man,  not  declaiming  it,  but  simply  talking  it  out 
in  a  low,  almost  wondering  voice,  as  if  he  were  rather 
amazed  at  himself  for  doing  it,  or  at  the  beauty  of  it, 
being  done.  We  both  felt  the  rhythm  of  it,  and  our 
feet  set  themselves  to  it  or  paused  at  the  will  of  our 
delighted  minds  when  it  broke  up  into  anapestic 
fervor.  But  alas  for  his  selection,  if  he  had  meant  to 
draw  me  out  of  love  to  his  dear  art :  for  he  had  fallen 
upon  the  scene  where  it  was  all  love,  and  the  world 


82  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

well  set  to  its  fulfilment.  There  was  ever  something 
austere  about  Blake's  genius;  yet  he  saw  the  earth 
as  it  was,  inevitably,  his  eye  was  so  keen.  He  saw 
with  a  patient  compassion  the  great  web  nature  spreads 
for  us  that  her  spaces  may  be  peopled  and  her  fecundi- 
ties eaten  up,  the  veil,  the  film  she  lays  upon  the  eyes 
of  girl  and  boy  that  they  may  desire  each  other  over- 
whelmingly. Not  feeling  it  himself,  save  as  a  call 
from  wildest  nature  he  refused,  he  yet  recorded  inevi- 
tably the  thrill  of  the  nerves,  the  ecstasy  of  the  exhila- 
rated brain  under  the  spell  of  nature  the  omnipotent, 
love  the  sorcerer.  And  this  scene  he  repeated  to  me 
was  nothing  but  a  love  poem  full  of  the  madness  of  life 
and  the  desire  of  its  continuance.  And  as  his  grave 
exultant  voice  went  on  —  exultant  because  he,  the 
lucky  one,  had  found  such  harmonies  —  the  earth  was 
my  master  and  my  plaything.  I  was  at  one  with  all 
her  purposes.  And  yet  it  did  not  seem  to  me  the  earth. 
It  seemed  a  region  as  lucent  and  new  discovered  as  a 
planet  swinging  that  night  in  the  palpitant  air.  I  was 
the  first  man,  and  I  had  been  spared  Eden  and  the 
climbing  steps  through  being  to  a  paradise  attained. 
I  was  in  paradise  at  a  leap.  When  he  finished,  I 
couldn't  speak.  Then  he  seemed  to  see  what  he  had 
done.  His  voice,  grave  and  gentle,  —  for  a  moment 
it  sounded  like  the  voice  of  my  old  friend  in  counsel  — 
recalled  me. 

"But  that,"  said  he,  "is  the  love  of  the  prince.     It 
is  only  earthly  love.    When  we  come  to  the  last  act 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  83 

there  will  be  the  love  of  the  poet,  and  that  is  the 
heavenly." 

"But  the  prince,"  I  said,  like  a  green  boy;  "you'll 
let  the  prince  be  happy." 

"No,"  said  Blake,  "he  can't  be.  He's  under  the 
spell  of  the  earth.  You  see  that.  He's  got  to  share 
all  her  gigantic  treacheries,  the  crumbling  of  her  atoms, 
the  disintegration  of  the  tangible.  And  then  he  struggles 
through  that,  reaching  up,  always  reaching  up,  until  he 
reaches  kingship  and  the  great  calls  and  duties." 

"But  the  princess,"  I  said.  She  seemed  to  me 
Mildred  Lee,  and  my  eyes  were  hot  with  tears  for  her 
set  in  this  barren  spot  of  kings  attaining  to  kingship 
through  the  downfall  of  their  love.  I  wanted  her 
to  live  in  a  garden  of  sweet  sun  and  shade.  "She 
can't  reach  up."  As  I  saw  her,  I  knew  she  mustn't. 
She  was  made  for  delicate  uses,  for  weaving  and  wear- 
ing the  garlands  of  life,  not  to  grow  gaunt  in  the  service 
of  it.  His  voice  grew  harsh,  I  thought. 

"Then,"  he  said,  "she'll  have  to  be  left  behind." 

I  remembered  what  he  said  of  the  poet. 

"What  do  you  mean,"  I  asked,  "by  the  heavenly 
love?" 

Blake  stopped  and  looked  up  into  the  sky.  The 
moon  was  riding  there,  conquering  wreath  after  wreath 
of  cloud  and  carrying  with  her  her  own  iridescent  mist. 
I  followed  his  eyes,  and  then  mine  came  down  to  his 
face.  It  was  thrown  back  at  the  angle  that,  in  a  pic- 
ture, might  have  suited  adoration.  I  could  see  the 


84  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

liquid  gleam  of  the  eyes.  The  lips  were  slightly  parted. 
He  looked  magnificently  alive  with  noble  feeling,  and 
I  wished  Mary  could  see  him,  Mary  who  challenged 
no  more  from  him  than  gentle  kindliness.  But  he  had 
no  answer  for  me.  Blake  was  absorbed  in  the  aspect 
of  creation,  of  re-creation,  the  flux  of  things,  stern 
prophecies.  He  had  not  a  momentary  doubt  of  the 
continuous  wonders  of  the  world.  To  be  bored,  to  be 
dissatisfied  in  a  universe  like  this,  all  ceaseless  activities, 
would  have  been  to  him  banal  beyond  expression.  He 
was  always  anxiously  looking  —  anxiously  because  he 
was  afraid  of  escaping  something  his  eyes  were  meant 
to  see  —  always  waiting  on  the  Lord  of  the  aspect  of 
things  to  see  what  might  be  doing  next.  But  he  re- 
called himself,  turning  back  to  me. 

"Redfield,"  he  said,  and  there  was  a  note  in  his 
voice  that  touched  me  profoundly,  of  fellowship,  of  ten- 
derness even,  "come  back  to  town  with  me.  You'd 
better." 

Why  had  I  better?  I  asked  stupidly.  The  ache 
and  glow  had  gone  out  of  me.  He  had  been  challeng- 
ing me  to  higher  issues  than  entrance  to  the  earth  and 
her  green  bowers,  and  it  tired  my  mind  and  my  will. 
Whatever  there  was  of  renunciation  in  this  pursuit  of 
the  heavenly  love,  I  did  not  want  it,  if  it  meant  surrender 
of  one  kiss  in  the  moonlight  here.  Furthermore,  my 
love  for  Mildred  Lee  was  heavenly,  of  itself,  by  birth 
royal,  as  hers  should  be  for  me.  Besides,  the  hour  was 
getting  on  and  the  road  was  un tenanted  save  for  our  two 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  85 

pacing  figures.  I  had  turned  at  each  end  of  a  rather 
long  tether  and  made  Blake  go  back  and  forth,  lest  we 
should  miss  her.  But  she  was  not  coming.  I  felt 
dull  and  cold. 

"Come,"  said  Blake,  even  more  persuasively,  as  we 
reached  the  barn  and  were  about  to  enter  the  mandolin 
tortured  atmosphere,  "come  back  with  me  to-morrow." 
And  then  he  added,  as  if  this  also  he  might  venture, 
"Think  it  over." 


IX 

PERHAPS  I  did  not  once  think  it  over.  It  may  have 
seemed  to  me  that  there  was  nothing  that  could  be 
deliberated  upon  without  doing  violence  to  so  great  a 
theme,  but  everything  to  be  lifted  to  a  supersensual 
zone  of  ecstasy  where  the  body  and  soul  are  one.  I 
went  back  to  town  because  my  task  was  calling  me, 
and  there  I  distinguished  the  first  day  of  what  seemed 
to  me  my  exile  from  Mildred  Lee  by  being  cross  to 
Mary.  This  was  because  I  wanted  her  to  let  me  alone, 
and  I  can  see  now  the  sudden  grieved  darkening  of  her 
honest  eyes.  Nobody  ever  had  eyes  of  such  an  appeal- 
ing candor,  such  clarity  of  intent  as  Mary.  She  went 
away  quite  softly  and  thoughtfully  (I  believe  she  had 
brought  me  something  cool  to  drink),  and  when  she 
had  gone,  I  threw  myself  down  on  the  bed  in  my  hot 
room  and  perfunctorily  cursed  myself  for  a  boor:  but 
it  was  indeed  mechanical  cursing  because  it  was  only 


86  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

decent  that  I  should  be  condemned.  Really  with  the 
live  part  of  my  mind  I  was  down  at  Romney  breathing 
a  finer  air,  and  crowning  Mildred  Lee  with  the  lush 
tribute  of  the  spring.  I  had  no  purposes  about  her. 
She  was,  and  I  had  found  her,  by  the  exquisite  chance 
of  the  hour,  and  as  soon  as  might  be  I  was  going  back 
to  her.  I  fancy  Blake  told  Mary  I  was  in  the  toils  of 
this  young  passion,  for  she  was  very  gentle  to  me  when 
we  met,  quite  as  if  I  had  been  through  some  alarming 
physical  experience  and  was  not  yet  strong.  She  bore 
no  malice  for  my  mood.  Mary,  by  nature  flavored  all 
through  with  the  essence  of  wifehood  and  motherhood, 
never  did  bear  malice.  She  hoped  all  things,  believed 
all  things,  and  was  kind.  I  had  notes  for  a  dozen 
stories  of  Little  Italy,  but  when  I  sat  down  to  write  I 
could  only  lay  my  dull  head  on  my  arms  upon  the  table 
and  wish  and  wish  —  for  Mildred  Lee.  And  on  the  even- 
ing of  the  third  day,  when  I  had  tried  with  every  nerve 
and  impulse  in  me  to  whip  up  flagging  imagination 
and  spur  my  pen  to  do  its  task,  I  saw  it  was  of  no  use 
whatever.  I  was  not  half  a  man  without  her  —  not 
half?  Not  an  inch  of  me  was  good  for  fight.  And 
I  took  my  bag  and  stole  out  of  the  house  so  that  Blake 
and  Mary  should  not  know.  I  got  a  train  at  seven,  and 
in  the  early  dusk  I  was  walking  up  the  road  to  her  fast, 
fast,  my  heart  beating  as  hearts  beat  only  once  or  twice 
in  a  whole  long  life.  That  night  is  with  me  now,  the 
feel  of  it,  the  smell,  and  the  ache  of  my  young  blood. 
It  was  all  hurry,  hurry,  to  be  where  alone  was  peace, 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  87 

and  would  be,  so  I  knew,  forevermore.  I  went  straight 
to  the  Apple  Tree,  where  ladies,  multitudinous  ladies, 
it  seemed  to  me,  were  sitting  on  the  veranda  singing 
"Old  Folks  at  Home."  I  passed  the  ordeal  of  their 
questioning  eyes,  and  went  into  the  little  parlor  vilely 
tinged  with  the  kerosene  of  its  lamp,  and  after  I  had 
sent  up  my  name  by  an  overalled  boy,  I  stood  there 
conscious  only  of  the  life  of  the  beating  heart.  At  once 
she  came,  in  white  as  I  had  seen  her  before,  but  in  an 
incredible  deshabille,  her  long  hair  braided  and  hang- 
ing to  her  belt.  She  had  evidently  gone  up  for  the 
night,  but  she  ignored  being  unprepared  to  see  a 
stranger,  such  as  I  might  well  have  seemed  to  her. 
Only  I  was  at  once  aware  that  I  was  not  a  stranger, 
though  I  was  humbly  ready  to  accept  my  place.  There 
was  an  understanding  between  us,  a  thrill  of  quickened 
life,  it  might  be,  or  was  it  only,  as  I  wondered  after- 
ward, her  miraculous  comprehension  of  me  and  her 
acceptance,  as  something  that  was  to  be?  I  put  out 
my  hands  to  her  and  took  both  hers  and  clung  to  them 
because  she  was  my  help.  My  own  grasp  must  have 
seemed  like  fetters,  it  was  so  desperate.  And  I  said 
her  name  twice,  " Mildred!  Mildred!" 

She  did  not  answer  a  word,  nor  did  she  withstand 
me.  She  listened  a  second,  I  saw,  her  head  inclined 
ever  so  little  to  the  veranda  where  the  song  had  ceased 
and  there  was  a  confused  suggestion  of,  "What  shall 
we  sing  now?" 

"Come,"  she  said  then,  in  a  low,  moving  voice  (ah, 


88  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

how  athirst  I  had  been  to  hear  her  voice  )  and  she  was 
stepping  softly  yet  quickly  to  the  side  door  and  I  was 
following. 

How  my  hands  had  been  persuaded  to  leave  her 
wrists  I  did  not  know;  but  she  was  free  and  I  was 
following,  shaken  to  my  soul,  understanding  at  last  the 
terrifying  impact  of  the  soul  upon  the  body  and  the  body 
on  itself.  Out  through  the  dark  we  went  and  along 
a  little  path  I  took  again  afterward  to  the  orchard 
where  there  seemed  to  be  light  indeed,  but  the  light 
of  the  apple  blooms  themselves.  And  there  she 
stopped  and  said,  "  You  came  back!"  in  that  low  voice, 
not  moved  perhaps  by  wonder  or  delight,  and  yet 
thrilling  me  to  both,  and  I  said  her  name  again,  and  at 
that,  with  her  consent,  bewilderingly  with  it,  for  it  was 
a  part  of  this  heaven-made  night,  my  arms  were 
about  her  and  my  lips  on  hers.  And  then  silence  and 
again  the  beating  of  my  heart.  And  she  said  in  a 
whisper, —  and  I  could  have  cried  out  with  the  wonder 
of  its  being  so  near  and  the  breath  of  it  on  my  cheek, — 

"I  must  go." 

I  held  her.    Go  now,  when  we  had  but  met  ? 

"She's  very  nervous  to-night,"  said  Mildred. 

She  ?  Miss  Harpinger  ?  I  felt  myself  wince  at  that 
name  brought  like  an  ill  breath  into  our  paradise. 

"Their  singing  on  the  piazza  bothers  her  frightfully," 
she  explained. 

And  though  I  implored  her  by  words  and  the  bold 
touch  of  her  cheek  to  throw  that  obligation  to  the  winds, 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  89 

go  she  would.  And  she  forbade  me  to  return  to  the 
house.  There  was  a  way,  she  said,  across  the  wall  and 
into  the  road.  That  I  must  take.  And  I  must  get 
back  to  town  that  night.  There  was  an  express  at  ten. 
I  obeyed  her  without  question,  stipulating  only  that 
she  should  leave  me  when  she  must,  and  I  would  go 
with  her  to  the  dusky  confines  of  the  orchard  and 
watch  her  across  the  path  of  light  from  the  lamp  within. 
And  she  did  go  at  once,  gently  inexorable  against  my 
childish  pleas,  and  I  watched  her  as  I  had  desired,  and 
her  whiteness  slipped  away  from  me  and  was  lost. 
Then  I,  scarcely  looking  my  happiness  in  the  face  as 
yet,  walked  the  country  road  until  there  was  scant  time 
to  take  the  train,  and  did  get  it,  and  at  something  after 
eleven  was  in  my  own  hot  little  room  again,  wondering, 
wondering  at  the  world  for  being  so  beautiful  —  so 
beautiful  and  so  secret,  for  I  had  never  seen  it  so  before — 
and  myself  for  having  attained  its  chief  of  wonders.  I 
wrote  to  her  before  I  slept,  and  while  I  sat  there  throw- 
ing off  page  after  page  of  fervid  asseveration,  Mary 
and  aunt  Cely  sat  down  there  in  the  yard  below  in  a 
monotone  of  talk. 

Next  morning  I  was  a  new  man.  I  could  work 
again.  I  must  work,  my  triumphing  heart  told  me, 
for  now  I  had  thrones  and  altars  to  build,  and  woman's 
soft  needs  to  satisfy.  And  as  I  am  a  living  man,  not 
knowing  to  this  day  how  I  did  it,  I  wrote  two  stories 
of  Little  Italy  before  nightfall,  to  the  tune  of  four 
hundred  dollars  each,  and  they  were  of  my  best,  and 


90  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

I  knew  I  could  do  the  same  every  day  with  that  great 
golden  bribe  of  heaven's  making  to  draw  me  on.  And 
that  night  of  course  I  wrote  to  her  again. 

X 

Now  it  might  easily  be  disbelieved  that,  from  this 
time  until  I  married  Mildred  Lee  I  saw  her  only  six 
times  in  all.  Those  incredible  six  times,  each  one 
starred  and  written  in  red  in  the  book  of  my  heart ! 
once  in  the  orchard,  once  on  a  hot  Sunday  when 
I  came  down  to  be  with  the  boys  and  walked  with 
them  and  her  interminable  miles  in  the  space  of 
half  an  hour,  silent  and  raging  because  I  could  not 
speak  to  her  alone,  once  on  the  veranda  of  the  inn 
when  the  rain  was  whirling  and  the  old  ladies  had  all 
gone  into  the  dining  room  to  play  cards  and  knit. 
That  day  had  been  darkness  itself  without  her,  and 
when  twilight  came  and  the  rain  with  it,  I  had  thrown 
my  papers  together  on  my  table  in  the  little  Burke 
Street  room,  and  desperately,  whether  I  was  to  find 
welcome  or  not,  run  to  the  station  and  gone  to  the 
Apple  Tree  door  with  a  purpose  of  demanding  her, 
as  if  even  the  little  boy  in  the  overalls  wanted  to 
keep  her  from  me.  But  she,  heaven  sent,  I  knew, 
had  strayed  to  the  door  for  a  breath  and  met  me, 
and  now  came  out  and  put  her  hand  on  my  arm  and 
we  paced  back  and  forth,  back  and  forth  in  silence, 
and  my  tempest  calmed.  I  can  feel  to  this  day  the 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  91 

wet  breath  of  the  wind  as  it  lashed  at  us  when  we 
turned  by  the  woodbine  to  go  back  again,  and  still  I 
could  say  nothing,  nothing  —  for  was  not  her  com- 
pany all  I  asked?  And  twice  there  were  really  long 
talks,  long,  serious  talks  in  the  pine  woods  behind  the 
house,  pacing  back  and  forth  and  settling  what  our 
Me  together  was  to  be.  This  was  after  Miss  Har- 
pinger  had  been  told  and  had  gone  into  unbridled 
tantrums  at  Mildred  Lee  for  leaving  her  when  Mary 
Harpinger  had  thought  she  had  engaged  her  for  a 
mortal  span,  and  against  me  for  daring  to  pluck  her 
servitor  away  from  her.  All  this  I  knew  by  letter. 
Miss  Harpinger  was  unappeasably  angry.  She  had 
taken  to  her  bed.  She  caterwauled  like  an  affronted 
beast.  She  offered  every  inducement  to  be  good  if 
only  Mildred  Lee  would  stay  with  her.  We  wrote 
daily,  Mildred  in  her  firm  square  hand  always  dis- 
passionate chronicles  of  the  latest  that  had  occurred, 
and  I  in  love's  rhythm.  And  to  this  she  said  not  a 
word  save  in  a  postscript  twice,  a  little  line,  "You  are 
a  silly  boy."  And  this  I  thought  very  gracious  of 
her,  and  very  tender  indeed  for  one  so  highly  set. 
But  it  was  she  who  summoned  me  for  the  first  talk  in 
the  orchard,  and  met  me  there  on  the  moment.  She 
wore  a  light  blue  dress,  and  I  put  into  her  hands  the 
white  roses  I  had  brought.  Foolish,  ill-done  perhaps, 
to  bring  the  florist's  nurslings  into  this  surging  coun- 
try life.  But  I  had  to  bring  her  something,  and  as 
yet  nothing  had  seemed  good  enough  to  buy.  There 


92  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

was  the  little  ring,  a  turquoise  and  two  tiny  diamonds 
-  how  alive  the  stones  were  on  her  white  hand !  - 
but  really  nothing  but  flowers  looked  worthy  of  her. 
She  held  the  roses  to  her  breast,  and  we  walked,  my 
hand  touching  her  bare  elbow,  softly,  because  as  yet 
I  had  a  noble  fear  of  her.  It  was  a  beautiful  fear, 
more  wondrous  then  to  me  than  the  heights  of  pos- 
session as  I  saw  them.  This  day  we  talked  of  many 
things.  The  wedding  day  was  set,  and  had  been  for  a 
week,  —  the  third  of  September,  and  now  we  were  in 
June.  But  she  could  not  possibly,  she  said,  leave 
Miss  Harpinger  before.  That  would  give  her  time  to 
get  reconciled,  and  Mildred  time  to  hire  a  new  com- 
panion and  break  her  in. 

"I  wonder, "  she  said  then,  so  hesitatingly  that  I 
thought  this  was  shyness  and  I  had  found  a  new 
beauty  ip.  her,  "I  wonder  if  we  could  consider  having 
her  live  with  us." 

"Who?"  I  asked  stupidly. 

"Miss  Harpinger." 

I  could  only  repeat  the  name,  again  stupidly.  I 
could  as  easily  imagine  a  person  who  had  escaped 
Miss  Harpinger  deliberating  over  a  return  as  I  could 
the  trainer  of  his  own  will  taking  an  afternoon  nap  in 
the  lion's  mouth. 

"She  is  not  a  young  woman,"  said  Mildred,  not  as 
if  she  were  persuading  me,  but  perhaps  setting  the 
case  before  us  both  impartially.  "She  hasn't  long  to 
live.  I've  asked  the  doctor  to  tell  me  that  quite 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  93 

frankly.  She's  rich,  you  know,  oh,  really  rich.  She 
could  live  anywhere,  but  she'd  give  her  little  finger 
to  be  with  us.  She'd  make  it  up  to  us.  She's  got  no 
relatives." 

The  sequence  of  things  flashed  into  my  head,  and 
with  it  the  shameful  implication  that  I  was  being 
tempted:  not  by  her  —  no,  no,  but  by  my  own  base 
nature  that  could  do  its  little  sum  and  come  to  the 
result  that  Mary  Harpinger,  helped  gently  down  the 
grade  of  years,  might  pay  for  kindness  at  the  end. 

"No,"  I  said,  the  more  violently  that  I  was  ashamed 
with  a  shame  Mildred  could  never  share,  "no,  no." 

She  seemed  to  accept  that  at  once,  gently,  temper- 
ately, as  she  always  met  me,  and  answered :  — 

"There'd  be  room  enough,  you  see.  We  haven't 
talked  houses  yet,  have  we?" 

No,  we  hadn't  talked  them,  but  I  had  my  little  plan. 
There  was  a  new  apartment  house  on  the  corner  of 
Burke  Street  and  Palm.  Its  windows,  some  of  them, 
overlooked  the  garden  where  aunt  Cely  and  Mary 
held  thek  summer  powwows.  We  might  even  see 
them  there  paring  pineapples  in  the  season.  I  thought 
Mary  would  like  that.  I  knew  I  should.  And  the 
new  apartments  had  modern  conveniences.  The  sign 
said  so.  All  this  about  the  size  of  the  apartments  and 
their  having  a  place  to  dry  washing  on  the  roof,  I 
poured  out  to  Mildred  and  she  listened  with  her  un- 
varying interest,  and  at  the  end  she  said:  — 

"Have  you  ever  noticed  those  houses  on  Osborne 


94  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

Street,  the  ones  with  the  big  knockers  and  the  fanlights 
over  the  doors?" 

Osborne  Street!  we  could  as  well  go  to  Russia  as  go 
to  Osborne  Street.  I  gasped  as  much. 

"  Dearest,"  I  said,  in  an  agony  over  having  to  deny 
her,  "you  ought  to  have  everything,  but  I'm  poor." 

She  put  up  the  roses  and  slapped  my  cheek  with 
them,  a  petal  slap,  all  velvety  and  fragrant. 

"You  go  in,  when  you  get  back,  and  take  a  look  at 
them,"  she  said;  "34  and  36  are  vacant." 

What  good  would  it  do  me  to  take  a  look  at  them? 
But  I  did  go,  and  I  did  take  a  look,  and  the  calm  beauty 
and  coolness  of  them  in  the  summer  day  wrapped  me 
round  beguilingly.  I  wandered  up  and  down  in  number 
34  —  that  had  the  view  of  the  west  over  the  water  — 
and  thought  I  was  dreaming  about  how  it  would  seem 
if  the  dining-table  could  be  here,  and  her  boudoir  there, 
and  wonderful  little  intimate  corners  up  and  down. 
I  gave  myself  quite  up  to  it,  this  dreaming,  so  that 
I  could  write  her  about  it  that  night  like  a  beautiful 
fairy  story  of  what  we  could  have  if  we  only  could. 
But  when  I  sat  down  to  the  table  to  write  it,  the  words 
got  twisted,  and  instead  of  telling  it  like  a  dream  I  told 
it  as  if  it  were  true,  and  next  day  I  went  and  signed  the 
lease  for  it,  and  behold  all  the  little  intimate  corners  in 
it  were  to  be  ours  after  all. 

Another  time  I  saw  her  was  when,  in  a  madness  of 
young  love,  I  dashed  down  to  Romney  and  summoned 
her  to  the  parlor  with  its  tidies  and  mottoes,  only  to 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  95 

ask  her  if  she  had  loved  anybody  before  she  loved  me, 
and  then  in  the  same  breath  adjured  her  if  she  had 
never  to  let  me  know.  But  paying  no  manner  of  heed 
to  this  last,  she  was  answering,  so  simply  and  directly 
that  my  heart  blessed  her  for  it,  that  she  had  once  been 
engaged  to  marry  "a  sort  of  cousin,  Tom  Gorham,  who 
had  gone  to  South  America  and  taken  a  position 
there." 

"To  make  money."  My  jealous  heart  prompted  my 
jealous  lips.  "To  make  money  to  let  you  marry. 
Where  is  he  now?" 

She  didn't  know.  His  uncle,  in  whose  banking  house 
he  had  been,  had  had  a  dreadful  and  complete  failure, 
and  she  had  written  Tom  that  it  was  useless  for  them 
to  think  of  marrying  after  all.  So  the  engagement 
was  broken,  and  Tom  had  married  out  there  —  a 
colored  person,  she  believed.  I  was  immediately  no 
more  jealous  of  Tom.  Othello  could  not  have  com- 
passed passion  in  the  face  of  her  precision  of  detail,  and 
his  marrying  a  colored  person  perhaps  without  delay. 

But  while  I  was  whirling  through  paradise  at  such 
a  pace,  so  that  even  the  flowers  there  made  a  blur  of 
brightness  only,  the  boys  knew  nothing  about  the  struct- 
ural strength  of  the  palace  I  had  built.  They  were 
very  good  to  me  in  a  gentle,  humane,  patient  way,  as 
if  I  were  still  having  an  illness  and  must  be  humored. 
That  amused  me  when  I  thought  of  it,  but  really  I 
thought  of  it,  or  of  them,  only  incidentally :  for  I  saw 
everything  through  fog  at  this  time,  everything  but 


96  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

Mildred  Lee  and  the  house.  As  to  the  house  itself, 
I  had  no  idea  how  I  was  to  pay  for  it ;  but  that  gave 
me  no  manner  of  discomfort.  One  miraele  had  hap- 
pened, and  the  succession  of  miracles  was  easy.  The 
old  logical  sequence  of  life  was  interrupted,  and  now 
I  had  every  reason  to  know  I  was  thenceforth  to  be 
treated  like  a  prince  of  the  blood.  This  was  not  my 
desert,  I  was  still  humble  enough  to  guess.  It  was 
only  because  my  life  had  been  linked  to  Mildred  Lee. 

One  day  in  July  when  I  was  doing  great  stunts  at 
journalism  —  for  I  had  caught  on  after  a  fashion  on  a 
daily  paper  and  was  down  on  the  wharfs  and  in  the 
thick  of  the  car  strike  —  I  met  Johnnie  McCann,  he 
going  down  the  harbor,  as  he  instantly  told  me  with 
cheerfulness,  because  he  felt  one  of  his  suicidal  fits 
coming  on,  and  he  thought  a  whiff  of  salt  air  might  do 
him  good. 

"Great  luck,  these  days,  for  the  Toasted  Cheese," 
said  he.  He  was  carrying  his  straw  hat  in  his  hand  — 
it  had  an  absurd  red,  white,  and  blue  ribbon  —  and  he 
looked  like  the  merriest  of  little  grigs  instead  of  a  fellow 
chronically  challenging  the  last  change.  I  thought  he 
meant  my  luck,  and  asked  him  how  he  knew. 

"Why,  all  of  us  know/'  said  he.  "I  should  take  it 
mighty  unfriendly  of  him  if  we  didn't. " 

"Of  him?" 

"Of  Blake.  You're  in  the  house  with  him.  You 
ought  to  know." 

I  hadn't  seen  Blake  for  a  fortnight,  and  I  was  ashamed 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  97 

to  say  that,  or  that  I  didn't  know.  But  Johnnie  was 
full  of  his  subject,  and  had  to  enlarge  upon  it  in  a  way 
equivalent  to  telling  me.  Blake,  it  seemed,  had  as 
good  as  sold  his  poetic  drama  to  Montresor,  who  called 
himself  the  leading  actor  of  the  day.  They  were  to 
meet  when  Montresor  got  back  from  Europe,  to  go 
over  certain  finical  details  hi  the  second  act.  But 
that  was  all,  absolutely  all  that  had  been  challenged 
in  the  play,  and  Montresor  had  practically  taken  it. 
Johnnie  wasn't  thinking  about  me,  and  I  was  relieved  be- 
cause now  I  needn't  excuse  myself,  and  nettled  in  that 
they  hadn't  missed  me  more.  But  when  I  got  home 
that  night  I  ran  up  to  Blake's  room  and  found  him  sizz- 
ling over  proof. 

"I've  had  this  set  up,"  he  said  to  me.  "My  play, 
yes.  Confound  the  thing.  No,  no,  I  don't  dare  to 
cuss  it.  But  it's  given  me  an  awful  lot  of  bother.  I 
don't  know  now  whether  my  rhymes  rhyme  or  my  feet 
march.  I've  mulled  over  it  till  I'm  blind  to  it  and 
heard  it  till  I'm  deaf." 

He  looked  tremendously  excited  and  worried,  too, 
not  in  the  least  like  a  man  who  has  had  good  fortune. 
I  plunged  into  that  —  his  good  fortune  —  and  he 
answered  me  absently. 

"Yes,  of  course  it's  great  luck.  Nobody  could  do 
anything  with  it  —  anything  I  could  bear  —  but 
Montresor.  Of  course  he's  the  top  of  the  tree.  But 
after  all,  that  isn't  the  point.  The  point's  the  thing 
itself.  If  it's  good,  if  it's  perfect  —  Redfield,"  —  here 


98  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

he  grew  intimate,  in  a  way  exalting  me,  for  Blake  seemed 
such  a  very  great  person  indeed  that  I  felt  myself 
growing  perceptibly  since  he  could  confide  in  me  — 
"Redfield,  I  give  you  my  word  I  don't  know  now 
whether  it's  good  or  whether  it  isn't.  Suppose  it  limps. 
Suppose  it  isn't  winged  at  all,  but  goes  thud,  thud,  words 
tottering  out  to  their  own  destruction.  I  could  give  up 
the  ship  if  that's  so.  Yes,  I  could  give  up  the  ship." 

He  was  talking  wildly  and  at  random.  I  wondered 
what  giving  up  the  ship  would  mean :  but  he  was  not 
capable  now  of  telling  me  connectedly,  and  I  said,  as  a 
species  of  rather  trivial  comfort,  — 

"You  read  me  the  love  scene.  That  was  great. 
You  know  that,  don't  you?" 

Here  he  brooded  and  didn't  answer  this  at  all.  I 
wished  he  would  let  me  read  it,  but  I  was  too  shy  to  ask 
it,  and  thought  I  knew  his  opinion  of  me  too  well. 

"Are  you  working  for  the  Bally  Thief?'1  I  said, 
and  he  started  out  of  his  maze,  as  if  in  wonder  that  I 
could  ask. 

"No,"  he  said,  "oh,  no.  I  haven't  had  time.  I've 
been  reading  a  lot  of  Greek — translations,  worse  luck. 
I  thought  it  would  help,  get  me  into  the  spirit  of  the 
third  act.  No,  I  shan't  have  time  to  do  that  sort  of 
thing  any  more." 

Here  he  forgot  me  altogether,  and  I  grew  rather 
frightened  at  seeing  how  gaunt  he  looked,  as  if  he  hadn't 
eaten  for  days,  and  how  his  eyes  shone.  So  I  ran 
downstairs  to  see  Mary,  and  ask  her  what  she  thought 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  99 

we  could  do  for  him.  But  Mary,  aunt  Cely  said,  had 
been  gone  a  week  on  her  vacation.  She  had  a  month 
this  year,  and  she  was  spending  it  in  the  village  where 
Mr.  Haley  boarded  his  sister's  boy.  The  boy  wasn't 
very  well,  and  Mr.  Haley  thought  he  should  feel  easier 
if  Mary  would  take  a  look  at  things.  Mr.  Haley  had 
run  down  over  Sunday.  He  could  give  the  last  news 
of  Mary.  Dear  man!  he'd  be  glad  to,  he  was  so  pleased 
to  think  the  boy  was  under  Mary's  eye.  At  this  I  was 
miffed,  and  wouldn't  have  asked  him  at  any  price.  It 
was  plainly  an  impertinence  for  a  little,  round,  redheaded 
man  to  absorb  our  beneficent  Mary,  especially  if  Blake 
needed  her.  But  next  day,  when  I  went  to  Blake's 
room,  he  had  gone  to  New  York,  aunt  Cely  said,  to  meet 
that  actor,  she  believed,  something  about  a  play.  So  I 
delivered  myself  over  to  romances  converging  on  Little 
Italy,  and  just  before,  the  very  day  before  Mildred  was 
to  come  up  to  buy  furniture  and  rugs,  appeared  a  mirac- 
ulous emissary  of  Rees  and  Dresser,  the  big  New  York 
publishers,  with  a  proposition  :  to  buy  me  and  my  work 
for  the  space  of  a  year  and  pay  me  proportionately  for 
my  lost  liberty.  Journalism  was  to  get  its  walking 
ticket.  I  was  not  a  business  man,  nor  have  I  ever 
become  one;  but  that  day,  with  the  vision  of  house 
rent  to  pay  and  multitudinous  furniture  looming  up 
against  me  and  the  Angel  in  the  House  imminent  to 
weave  the  fabric  of  her  future  and  look  at  beauties  and 
comforts  with  sweet  unworldly  eyes,  not  recking  what 
they  cost :  with  this  tumultuous  circumstance  against 


100  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

me  I  was  galvanized  into  some  sort  of  shrewdness  and 
fought  for  money  as  if  it  were  my  life.  And  the  emis- 
sary went  up  surprisingly  in  his  bid,  and  left  me  gasping. 
So  that  when  Mildred  came  up  to  buy  her  furnishings, 
I  could  go  with  her  in  some  semblance  of  security,  and 
that  was  the  sixth  time  I  saw  her  and  the  last  before 
she  met  me  at  the  church. 


XI 

AND  after  all  I  never  told  Blake,  the  man  I  loved  best 
after  Egerton  Sims,  that  I  was  to  be  married ;  and  the 
day  even  came  and  he  had  not  been  told.  But  having 
gone  to  New  York  to  work  out  his  play  with  Mon- 
tresor,  he  stayed  there,  and  even  Mary  could  give  me 
no  more  news.  I  have  a  theory  she  could  not  write 
him  because  she  missed  him,  the  vital  presence  of  him, 
too  much  to  say  so  in  any  form  and  even  to  keep  from 
saying  so  if  she  once  gave  herself  leave  to  write.  I  might 
have  written  him  myself,  but  I  was  hammering  away 
at  Little  Italy,  feeding  it  into  the  hopper  and  snatching 
it  out  at  the  other  end  in  rugs  and  chairs  and  curtains, 
mysterious  lendings  that  Mildred  came  up  to  order, 
and  that  I  believed  in  as  a  part  of  the  ritual  of  the  new 
worship.  In  that  last  interview  she  had  said  to  me, 
something  to  my  bewilderment,  — 

"We  ought  to  decide  where  we  are  going  to  church." 

"Oh!" 

That  was  all  I  could  say.    I  had  gone  devoutly  in  the 


MY  LOVE  AtfD  I.  101 

island  because  Egerton  Sims  had  assumed  it  as  a  part 
of  the  propriety  of  conduct,  but  I  had  an  idea  that  I 
had  laid  it  aside  with  other  alien  rigors  of  his  dutiful 
life.  They  were  garments  that  fitted  him,  not  me. 
But  as  to  Mildred  and  me,  I  had  not  thought  of  us  as 
leaving  our  domestic  paradise  to  go  to  church. 

"Miss  Harpinger,"  said  she,  "goes  to  Doctor  Ever- 
est's." 

Perfect  as  she  was,  I  wished  she  would  not  quote 
Mary  Harpinger.  The  woman  was  a  blot,  wilfully 
disfiguring  the  page  of  life.  I  could  see  she  had  gone 
on  deepening  her  hue,  making  herself  blacker  and 
blacker  all  the  useless  days  she  lived. 

"So,"  said  Mildred,  "I've  seen  more  or  less  of  the 
people.  They're  brainy,  all  of  them,  and  very  well 
placed.  They've  got  money  to  spend,  and  they  read. 
I  think  we'd  better  settle  on  them." 

"You  don't  mean  money  to  spend  on  my  books," 
I  said,  in  a  foolish  mirth,  because  even  now  I  knew 
how  unstable  my  beginnings  of  books  seemed  to  me. 
But  Mildred  did  not  smile,  and  my  joke  immediately 
dwindled  in  my  eyes. 

"I  really  think,"  said  she,  "I  think  we'd  better  make 
up  our  minds  to  Doctor  Everest's.  And  we'll  be 
married  there." 

I  had  been  born  and  grounded  in  the  custom  of  the 
lover  and  his  lass  driving  to  the  country  minister  to 
be  married,  with  a  casual  witness  drawn  in  from  the 
kitchen  or  the  barn.  But  this,  I  knew,  argued  me  a 


102  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

groundling.  I  had  no  traditions  of  a  dignified  type, 
and  if  I  could  have  bought  it  for  her,  Mildred  should 
have  been  married  in  a  cathedral  under  the  blazon 
of  stained  glass.  Though  she  had  no  kindred  save  the 
unfortunate  Tom  who  had  declined  upon  a  colored 
person,  I  knew  from  innate  certainty  how  perfect  her 
traditions  were.  Therefore  I  humbly  accepted  my 
tryst  with  her  at  Doctor  Everest's  church,  and  when 
she  told  me  by  letter  that  two  friends  of  Miss  Harpinger, 
a  man  and  a  woman  exceedingly  well  placed  in  Boston, 
were  to  stand  up  with  us,  I  accepted  that,  too,  though  I 
should  have  liked  Blake  for  my  own  best  man.  But  Blake 
was  hidden  in  the  fastnesses  of  his  poetic  rapture  there 
in  New  York,  and  I  dared  not  summon  him  forth  even 
by  the  bugle  note  to  Mildred  Lee's  wedding.  And  all 
the  other  fellows  of  the  Toasted  Cheese,  dear  as  they 
were,  yet  seemed  more  fitted  to  the  tinkling  calls  of  life, 
and  after  Blake,  I  might  as  well  have  an  unknown  as 
anybody.  I  did  tell  the  boys,  though  late.  I  pur- 
posely made  it  late  because  I  didn't  want  any  healths 
drunk  at  the  Cheese,  any  gay  felicitations.  This  joy 
of  mine  seemed  a  secret  and  a  solemn  thing.  I  could 
have  no  profaning  feet  upon  the  pavement  of  my  dream. 
But  meeting  Johnnie  McCann  in  the  street,  two  days 
before  we  went  to  church,  I  threw  him  the  great  news 
impulsively  and  asked  him  to  tell  the  others.  I  need 
not  have  feared  too  loud  a  note  of  sympathetic  joy. 
He  looked  at  me  as  if  I  had  struck  him  stiff  and  sense- 
less. Then  he  muttered,  "Good  God!"  apparently 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  103 

to  himself,  and  hurried  on,  pursued,  I  made  no  doubt, 
by  his  old  mania.  I  smiled  at  it  then.  I  told  myself 
Johnnie  was  a  funny  boy.  But  he  and  the  others  were 
funnier  than  I  thought,  or  than  they  did,  either;  for 
the  next  day  I  got  notice  from  a  popular  furnishing 
store  that  an  oak  sideboard  had  been  bought  for  me 
and  was  awaiting  my  directions  before  being  sent : 
"  Compliments  of  the  Toasted  Cheese."  I  telegraphed 
this  information  to  Mildred,  my  heart  so  soft  over  the 
fellows  that  I  wanted  to  invite  them  to  the  ceremony. 
And  Mildred  telegraphed  back:  "Have  price  of  side- 
board put  to  your  account.  Wedding  private.  How 
could  we  invite  them?"  Well,  how  could  we?  I 
saw  that  at  once,  but  I  felt  cold-hearted  and  shilly- 
shallying not  to  have  treated  the  boys  as  well  as  they 
had  treated  me.  I  saw,  too,  her  point  about  the  side- 
board. She  had  her  sideboard,  a  rather  magnificent 
antique  affair  that  cost  half  a  story,  and  she  had  but 
one  dining  room  and  two  sideboards  couldn't  very  well 
fight  it  out  together  there,  since  we  must  have  place 
to  eat.  But  I  wouldn't  turn  the  sideboard  into  my 
account.  I  loved  it  heartily  because  the  boys  had 
given  it  to  me,  and  I  went  out  and  stealthily,  I  thought 
with  a  wry  smile,  hired  a  corner  of  a  store-room  in  a 
warehouse  and  put  my  sideboard  there.  And  so  re- 
minded of  the  unloosed  ties  of  life,  I  wrote  Mary  a 
letter,  warm  as  I  could  make  it,  and  told  her  I  was 
going  to  be  married  and  she  must  meet  my  wife. 

The  night  before  my  marriage  whether  I  was  in  the 


104  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

body  or  not  I  did  not  know.  I  didn't  smoke,  usually. 
It  was  partly  the  reaction  of  Blake  and  Egerton  Sims 
on  what  was  still  my  imitative  youth ;  but  that  night 
I  sat  by  the  window  and  watched  the  western  sky  and 
my  pipe  was  by.  The  sky  kept  me  company  from  rose 
and  blood  color  to  its  virgin  star,  and  it  was  all  a  symbol 
of  what  was  soon  to  be.  First  the  rose  of  our  heaven- 
descended  passion  and  then  the  stars,  mysterious  ward- 
ers set  to  light  our  hope,  the  guardians  of  our  blended 
life.  For  I  knew  this  blush  was  but  the  splendor  of 
the  marriage  eve.  I  knew  the  actual  world  was  dark 
like  night,  and  we  two  were  to  find  our  way  through  it 
together.  Yet  those  heavenly  warders  would  be  always 
there.  And  the  life  in  me  became  almost  an  anguish, 
it  was  so  keen;  for  chiefly  I  was  afraid,  and  it  was  all 
for  her.  How  could  I  make  her  happy,  this  softest 
creature,  this  snow  and  fire  and  dew  of  womankind? 
how  could  I  ease  the  path  before  her  tender  feet  ?  how 
should  I  keep  the  outcry  of  the  world  from  battling 
at  her  casement?  I  looked  to  myself  a  rough  chap 
indeed  to  have  essayed  so  brave  a  charge.  What  would 
she  find  me  in  a  month  or  so  of  my  blunt-witted  levity  ? 
And  then,  driven  by  the  wonder  and  sharp  joy  and 
pain  of  it  all,  I  sat  down  at  my  table  with  no  purpose 
save  that  the  soul  in  me  had  to  speak,  and  wrote  it  down: 
all  I  could  catch  of  it  from  the  heavenly  voice  that 
seemed  to  be  dropping  fears  and  longings  into  my  heart, 
dropping  them  all  over  my  room  indeed,  for  they  were 
like  angels  too  heavily  laden  with  blooth,  so  that  the 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  105 

petals  fell.  And  it  was  lyric,  the  falling  of  these  petals, 
and  it  beat  into  lines,  and  I  saw,  with  no  interest  be- 
cause the  laden  angels  were  of  so  much  vaster  import 
than  what  I  had  been  able  to  gather  of  their  scattered 
store,  that  I  was  writing  verse.  And  after  I  had  put 
into  it  what  I  was  able  to  gather  in  both  hands  of 
the  blossom  shower  —  the  rose  of  the  sky  and  the 
warder  stars  and  my  delight  in  the  coming  of  the  bride 
and  my  fear  of  her  austere  state  and  my  vow  that  so 
far  as  I,  her  servitor,  could  guard  it,  her  path  should 
be  made  plain  —  I  dropped  my  head  on  my  arms  on 
the  table  and  slept  there,  and  after  a  minute,  it  seemed, 
it  was  morning  and  this  was  my  great  day.  And  the 
rest  of  it  passed  like  a  dream,  with  a  correct  stranger 
standing  at  my  side  in  the  church,  and  the  touch  of 
Mildred's  hand  and  her  promising  irrevocable  things 
in  her  calm  voice.  And  we  drove  to  our  own  house 
and  found  luncheon  set  by  the  "accommodator"  she 
had  engaged  to  serve  us  until  she  had  time  to  look 
about  her  and  arrange  her  household.  And  there  I 
found  my  bag,  brought  over  from  aunt  Cely's  that 
morning,  and  -strangely  that  seemed  to  me  the  most 
incredible  circumstance  of  all  and  the  most  final. 
Here  were  the  last  of  my  traps.  I  had  sent  the  others 
before.  The  bag  marked  the  line  between  the  old  life 
and  this  uncharted  one.  I  had  told  aunt  Cely  where 
I  was  going,  and  why  I  had  given  up  the  room  the  week 
before,  and  she  had  put  up  her  colossal  arms  and 
wrapped  me  in  them.  I  dare  say  she  would  have 


106  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

kissed  me  if  I  had  bent  to  it,  but  I  wanted  no  kisses 
save  from  one. 

"You  are  a  good  boy/'  said  aunt  Cely.  "I  know 
she's  a  good  girl.  What  does  she  do  ?" 

In  Burke  Street  we  all  did  something,  man  and 
woman.  There  were  even  a  few  laundresses  at  the  less 
hopeful  end  of  it,  who  carried  home  parcels  in  checked 
gingham  to  fortify  husbands  that  took  their  sedentary 
recreation  in  the  Common. 

"  She  is  a  princess,"  said  I,  in  the  pride  of  my  crown- 
ing. 

"Well,  well!"  said  aunt  Cely.  She  always  knew 
what  you  meant,  even  if  you  did  speak  in  figures. 
Though  she  weighed  two  hundred  and  twelve,  she  had 
been  born  in  Arcadia  those  sixty  years  ago.  "Well, 
you  tell  her  to  be  good  to  you." 

"Tell  me  to  be  good  to  her,"  said  I  like  lightning,  and 
she  was  as  ready. 

"You  will  that.  You're  a  good  boy.  Wait  a  sec- 
ond." She  toiled  back  into  the  parlor  and  brought  out 
a  little  cup  of  the  three  left  from  her  old  set.  "Here," 
said  she,  "I  wish  'twas  more,  but  the  other  two  are  for 
John  Blake  and  Mary  some  day.  Bring  your  wife 
to  see  me.  Tell  her  I'd  come  myself,  but  it's  hard  for 
me  to  get  round." 

So  I  had  gone  to  my  new  home  with  the  cup  hung 
on  one  finger  and  some  books  in  the  other  hand.  The 
little  cup  moved  me  tremendously,  thinking  how  good 
everybody  had  been  to  me  always,  and  for  no  desert  of 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  107 

mine.  And  that  afternoon,  when  we  had  broken  bread 
together,  Mildred  and  I,  at  our  own  table,  I  brought 
out  the  little  cup  and  told  her  how  nice  aunt  Cely  had 
been,  and  how  we  must  go  round  to  call  on  her  in  a  day 
or  two.  I  can  see  Mildred  now  sitting  there  in  her 
perfect  light  gray  dress,  turning  the  cup  in  her  delicate 
fingers. 

"Lowestoft,"  she  said. 

Later,  when  the  west  was  aflush  again,  I  remembered 
the  crumpled  papers  thrust  into  a  book  in  that  instant 
of  leaving  Burke  Street,  and  took  them  out,  looked  at 
them,  and  they  seemed  something  mine  and  yet  partly 
strange  to  me.  But  it  was  hers,  too,  the  half  of  it,  nay, 
all,  for  the  call  of  her  spirit  to  mine  had  generated  it 
and  called  the  petals  and  the  wings. 

"Come  here,"  I  said.  "I  want  to  read  you  some- 
thing." And  I  led  her  to  the  western  window  and 
drew  her  down  beside  me  on  the  window-seat  and  kept 
my  arm  about  her.  I  seemed  to  have  grown  very  stern, 
like  iron  in  my  tenderness.  I  did  not  know  the  man  I 
had  become.  And  I  read  her  all  the  long  poem,  and 
she  listened  in  that  stillness  of  hers  that  always  seemed 
to  be  waiting  and  never  to  have  adequate  impulses  of 
its  own  to  break  it.  And  as  I  read  I  wondered.  It 
was  not  mine,  I  knew.  It  belonged  to  that  upper  air 
where  the  stars  have  ordered  courses,  and  it  kept  an 
inevitable  flow  and  rhythm  such  as  I  could  not  imagine 
altered.  It  was  one  of  the  things  that  are.  You  can- 
not change  them.  If  you  try,  they  fly  back  like  a 


108  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

growing  branch,  bound  down  in  its  first  spring  vigor,  to 
the  curve  its  healthy  cells  have  made.  I  finished,  and 
I  wondered  what  she  would  say. 

"What  do  you  call  it?"  she  asked  me,  still  in  the 
clear  voice  that  told  no  tales  of  her. 

"  Nothing.    Yes,  it's  an  epithalamium.     That's  all." 

" Where  are  you  going  to  send  it?" 

Send  it  ?  Then  the  answer  came  in  a  rush  from  my 
hot  heart  to  my  brain.  This  was  the  answer, —  "I 
have  sent  it  in  reading  it  to  you.  I  have  sent  it  to  the 
red  heart  beating  under  your  white  breast."  But  my 
lips  could  not  utter  that.  They  were  sealed  by  my 
great  fear. 

XII 

WHEN  I  look  back  at  the  months  after  my  marriage, 
I  see  chiefly  a  succession  of  days  spent  in  the  hardest 
work  I  had,  up  to  that  time,  done.  In  moving  into 
the  house  on  a  street  above  my  worldly  status,  I  had 
set  in  motion  gigantic  machinery  that  would  not  stop, 
and  indeed  had  to  be  fed  lest  it  should  slacken.  Life  re- 
solved itself  into  a  demand  for  money.  There  were  people 
below  stairs,  working  very  hard  I  was  willing  to  believe, 
so  that  Mildred  and  I,  in  our  pretty  state  at  our  pol- 
ished table,  could  eat  of  the  best,  suitably  served. 
There  were  other  persons  in  an  obscurity  outside  our 
vision,  ransacking  the  earth  for  luscious  fruits,  making 
the  coldest  of  storages  for  perishable  products,  killing 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  109 

animals  that  we  might  gather  in  enough  proteids, 
keeping  an  unvarying  temperature  in  greenhouses  that 
we  might  have  violets,  and  weaving  and  spinning  and 
embroidering  that  our  state  should  be  clothed.  And 
for  all  this  intricate  system  of  congested  production 
I  had  to  work,  sometimes  by  night  as  well  as  by  day, 
to  find  my  just  equivalent.  When  I  flagged  for  a 
moment  in  invention  —  never  in  endurance,  for  I  was 
very  strong  —  even  then  I  never  thought  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  being  less  at  ease  in  the  hostelry  of  the  world. 
So  far  I  had  not  thought  longingly  of  the  goods  of  the 
earth.  I  liked  the  crude  abundance  at  aunt  Cely's,  also 
the  honest  dearth.  When  we  had  an  ice  sent  in  there, 
it  had  seemed  like  an  enormous  festival,  like  the  snow 
brought  from  the  mountains  for  Persian  kings.  But  this 
sitting  in  the  centre  and  letting  the  goods  of  the  earth 
revolve  past,  stopping  benignly  for  us  to  take  a  portion, 
always  paying  that  toll  I  sometimes  found  it  hard  to 
satisfy,  this  seemed  to  me  a  monstrous  ordered  confusion, 
but  something  that  had  got  to  be  kept  up.  I  was  still 
turning  out  my  stories  of  Little  Italy,  and  it  was  com- 
monly said  that  I  was  astonishingly  prolific.  It  was 
dull  work,  sometimes  hateful  work.  I  was  following 
my  recipe  as  exactly  as  a  horse  in  a  treadmill  puts 
down  his  feet.  The  stories  must  be  short,  full  of 
sentiment,  tinged  with  optimism,  and  there  should 
be  that  little  snap  of  surprise  at  the  end.  I  could  do 
them  with  my  eyes  shut,  and  almost  with  my  mind 
asleep.  Mildred  would  say  something  to  me  across 


110  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

the  coffee  cups,  something  that  either  charmed  or  hurt 
me  —  she  hurt  me  only  when  I  felt  we  were  hallooing 
to  each  other  from  different  continents  of  foreign  minds 
—  and  I  could  sometimes  actually  make  two  stories  out 
of  it,  one  of  misunderstanding  made  miraculously  plain 
and  one  of  perfect  understanding  glorified.  And  in  the 
middle  of  the  winter  I  had  grippe  and  my  mind  went  to 
sleep,  all  but  the  vague  trouble  of  feeling  it  was  not  at 
its  post  feeding  the  industrial  hopper  of  the  world ; 
and  when  it  woke  up  I  heard  a  hated  voice  from  the 
floor  below  giving  orders  as  if  it  were  much  at  home. 
Mildred  was  setting  my  medicine  table  in  trim  in  the 
deft  way  she  had,  not  a  shade  less  tranquil  for  the  extra 
burden  she  must  have  carried. 

"Who's  that?"  I  said. 

The  effort  seemed  to  send  me  singing  off  in  waves 
of  ebbing  nothingness. 

She  did  not  hesitate. 

"Miss  Harpinger,"  said  she. 

I  tried  again  to  speak,  but  words  would  not  serve  me, 
and  I  gave  an  unbridled  sound  comparable  to  the  speech 
of  the  lower  animals,  and  this,  I  suppose,  was  a  groan. 
I  thought  I  understood.  I  must  have  been  ill  for 
months.  (It  was  only  two  weeks,  but  that  I  could  not 
compass.)  I  thought  she,  the  queen  of  my  luxurious 
little  kingdom  greening  on  the  edge  of  an  abyss,  had 
been  terrified  at  seeing  me,  the  purveyor  of  life,  laid 
flat,  and  she  had  called  in  this  raucous  element  of  the 
world  of  money  to  stand  by  us  in  our  need.  It  was 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  111 

pitiful  to  me,  because  so  ineffably  sweet  of  Mildred. 
For  of  course  the  labor  of  it  all  would  come  on  her. 
To  be  that  unfortunate  and  uncatalogued  thing,  a  com- 
panion, was  her  only  industry,  her  way  of  meeting  the 
world,  delicate  child  as  she  was.  So  she  had  taken  the 
raw  product  which  was  Mary  Harpinger,  into  what  was 
the  stillness  of  our  expensive  walls,  to  foster  her  and 
fulfil  her  outrageous  claims.  All  the  demands  of 
Mary  Harpinger  seemed  to  me  outrageous  because  I 
could  not  consider  that  the  hateful  fungus  of  her  dis- 
torted will  might  easily  be  overlooked  by  a  pity  greater 
than  mine,  that  saw  how  she  was  cut  off  by  her  disease 
from  the  normal  attitude  of  life.  I  made  a  clutch  at 
my  own  normal  life  then  by  resolving  as  definitely  as  so 
weak  a  thing  could  do,  that  the  day  I  stood  on  my  feet 
again  Mary  Harpinger  should  leave  the  house.  So  I 
shut  my  eyes  and  gave  myself  up  to  the  healing  and 
strengthening  powers  as  far  as  I  might,  because  this 
one  domestic  shock  was  enough  to  show  me  I  must 
conserve  my  wasted  force  to  the  end  of  getting  "fit." 
I  ate  prodigiously  as  soon  as  hunger  came  to  me,  and 
encouraged  it  and  slept  savagely,  burrowing  down 
into  lethargy  because,  as  I  was  now,  my  brain  found 
no  fecund  impulses  toward  stories  of  Little  Italy, 
even  to  the  end  of  buying  the  weekly  butter.  And 
one  day  I  felt  much  like  myself,  and  got  on  my  clothes 
with  unaccustomed  hands,  and  sat  by  the  window  feel- 
ing foolishly  small. 

" Any  letters?"     I  asked. 


112  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

Mildred  was  covering  my  knees  with  the  green  and 
blue  plaid  cape  I  had  once  seen  her  wear  in  a  rain  at 
Romney,  and  it  brought  back  the  swelling  love  of  that 
new  time,  when  I  scarcely  dared  look  at  her  wet  cheek 
for  thinking  what  the  touch  of  it  would  be  in  its  fresh 
cool  bloom.  I  took  up  her  hand  as  it  dropped  the 
plaidie  over  me,  and  I  kissed  it,  and  thought  she  too 
must  be  knowing  what  my  memory  had  been. 

" Yes,"  said  she,  "there  are  letters.  I  opened  them." 
She  brought  them.  There  were  business  letters. 
One  had  held  a  check,  and  this  she  had  deposited. 
That  was  right.  There  were  two  offers  from  magazines 
for  stories.  These  I  could  not  consider,  because  I  was 
sold  outright  to  Rees  and  Dresser.  But  there  was  one 
small  envelope  with  an  eccentric  neat  writing  I  knew.  I 
felt  the  blood  come  into  my  cheeks.  I  felt  like  a  lover. 
It  was  from  Blake,  and  a  part  of  me  loved  him  more  than 
almost  anything  on  earth,  in  a  certain  way.  I  could 
almost  smile,  in  a  tender  fashion,  over  this  love  of  mine 
for  Blake.  It  belonged  to  the  side  of  me  that  saw 
literature  a  long  way  off,  like  an  accomplished  structure, 
a  thing  architecturally  beautiful  and  strong  to  last, 
to  which  all  the  nations  had  brought  then*  tribute,  one 
a  stone  and  another  a  frost-work  of  frieze.  A  warm 
wave  of  pleasure  came  over  me.  So  he  had  known  I  was 
ill,  and  he  had  written  me  to  say  he  was  sorry.  But  the 
letter  itself  threw  me  into  a  wonder.  It  was  no  such 
curt,  kind  heartening  as  Blake  might  have  written,  the 
hail  of  man  to  man.  It  was  a  hot  panegyric  on  some- 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  113 

thing  I  had  done,  full  of  flaming  adjectives,  laudations, 
extravagant,  indeed,  but  tempered  by  what  I  could  see 
he  was  sure  was  the  justice  of  them.  It  was  written 
with  the  measured  beat  of  great  prose,  as  if  he  felt  the 
subject-matter  demanded  his  finest  periods,  as  if  he 
could  not,  in  the  presence  of  perfection,  chant  its 
laudations  in  any  but  the  purest  measures.  I  felt  my- 
self exhilarated  by  it,  upborne  as  on  the  angels  with 
four  wings  to  highest  ether,  and  though  I  was  conscious 
of  having  done  nothing  to  deserve  it,  yet  I  felt  beatifi- 
cally  conscious  that  I  must  have  done  something  after 
all,  since  Blake  must  know.  I  read  a  phrase  of  it  here 
and  there  to  Mildred,  who  was  putting  the  room  in 
order  as  she  had  an  accurate  habit  of  doing.  Her 
touch  upon  a  room  was  like  a  pianist's  upon  keys, 
always  to  the  end  of  harmony. 

"Hear  this/'  I  said.  "What  does  it  mean?  'Noth- 
ing more  exquisite  since  Keats/  '  Perhaps  Keats  himself 
never  compassed  that  sense  of  the  dewy  beginnings, 
the  march  out  of  sunrise  across  the  plain  of  day.' 
'More  love  in  it  than  anything  but  the  one  immor- 
tal lyric' — oh,  what  does  he  mean,  what  does  he 
mean?" 

She  was  standing  by  the  table,  putting  jonquils  into 
a  vase,  and  she  looked  over  at  me,  a  jonquil  in  her  hand. 
Standing  there,  her  slim  young  figure  against  the  gray- 
green  of  the  wall,  no  line  of  emotion  graven  in  her  face, 
she  was  illusory  as  spring  and  as  mysterious.  That 
veil  we  call  beauty,  our  wonder  and  our  despair,  was 


114  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

over  her  from  the  crown  of  her  bright  head  to  her 
perfect  foot.  Yet  I  did  not  know  what  she  was  thinking 
any  more  than  I  knew  whether  the  spring  itself  was 
cognizant  of  worship.  And  perhaps  from  my  weakness, 
I  felt  far  away  from  her,  and  pity  for  us  both  that  her 
soul,  too,  must  go  uncomprehended.  When  I  was  at  my 
physical  best,  blood  currents  running  free  and  some 
reckless  abandon  in  me,  this  illusiveness  of  hers  gave 
me  a  sense  of  something  to  attain.  But  now  I  was  too 
weak  to  take  even  one  conquering  step  toward  her,  and 
it  saddened  me.  In  my  physical  poverty  I  was  clinging 
to  her  like  a  child,  and  I  put  out  my  querulous  plaint  to 
be  illumined,  reassured. 

"Look  here,"  I  said.  "Read  this.  What  does  he 
mean?" 

"I've  looked  at  it,"  said  she,  as  if  it  were  a  matter  of 
no  moment.  "It's  the  Epithalamium  he  means." 

"I  haven't  written  any  -  There  I  stopped.  Had 
the  leaping  flame  of  that  pre-nuptial  night  somehow 
been  caught,  the  flare  of  it  only,  by  alien  profane  eyes  ? 
Even  John  Blake's,  the  very  pulse  of  poetry,  even  his  eyes 
were  profane  if  they  had  seen  those  words,  that  were 
the  trysting  of  my  soul  with  hers.  Had  I,  in  the 
vagueness  or  even  the  delirium  of  this  hateful  illness, 
in  some  mad  moment  sent  them  to  him? 

"Mildred,"  I  implored,  "what  does  he  mean?" 

She  had  been  running  her  duster  over  the  polished 
table  and  then  regarding  it  with  righteous  care  to  catch 
the  maid  in  service  slackly  done.  The  little  frown  over 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  115 

her  estimate  smoothed  momentarily,  and  she  took  up  a 
magazine  from  the  table  and  brought  it  to  me  as  suffi- 
cient answer. 

"Here,"  she  said.  She  turned  the  leaves  in  her  deft 
way  whose  every  motion  counted,  and  held  it  for  me. 
There  were  black  spots  swimming  before  my  eyes,  but 
I  could  read  the  page.  "An  Epithalamium,  by 
Martin  Redfield."  And  then  began  the  lines  that  had 
been  so  much  a  part  of  the  sunset  and  the  dark  that 
I  was  like  a  fool  surprised  that  type  could  echo  them.  I 
looked  up  at  her,  and  the  vision  of  her  swam  in  con- 
fusion: for  my  eyes  were  full  of  tears.  I  was  un- 
speakably humble  before  her.  It  was  inconceivable  to 
me  that  I  could  have  done  a  thing  like  that,  even  in  the 
madness  of  physical  overthrow,  and  she  still  regard 
me  with  her  unmoved  favor. 

"I  didn't — "  I  began  in  miserable  disclaimer. 
"Yes,"  I  said,  "I  must  have  sent  it,  but  I  didn't 
know." 

She  shut  the  book  with  one  of  her  serviceable,  swift 
motions. 

"Now,"  said  she,  "you  must  have  your  egg." 

I  had  to  go  back  to  bed  presently.  The  doctor  came, 
and  seemed  to  think  me  unreasonably  tired.  He  asked 
if  I  had  had  any  worry  or  a  shock  of  some  sort,  and  I 
said,  "no." 

I  never  answered  that  letter  from  John  Blake.  Even 
when  I  was  on  my  feet  and  rather  doggedly  turning  out 
more  Little  Italy,  because  we  had  fallen  far  behind  in 


116  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

our  expenses,  even  then  I  would  not  read  the  poem. 
The  magazine  lay  there  on  the  table  until  one  day, 
when  I  was  alone,  I  fell  upon  it  and  tore  it  with  fury,  a 
little  ashamed  of  my  passion  and  glad  nobody  saw  me 
thrust  it  on  the  fire.  And  that  afternoon  Mildred 
came  to  me  when  I  was  sardonically  inventing  a  senti- 
mental turn  to  the  end  of  a  story,  and  asked :  — 

"Do  you  know  where  the  Torch  Bearer  is?  Miss 
Eliot  wants  to  see  your  poem." 

Miss  Eliot  was  a  tall,  long-footed,  erudite  person  of 
locally  imperishable  blood  who  was  feeding  upon 
lectures  with  a  rounded  certainty  that  they  made  the 
intellectual  life,  and  came  to  share  them  with  Miss 
Harpinger  in  sips.  The  only  redeeming  feature  I  had 
thus  far  seen  in  Miss  Harpinger  was  her  brutal  scorn  of 
Mattie  Eliot,  who,  she  said,  was  a  fool  that  had  got  the 
idea  books  were  invented  yesterday. 

"Do  you  know  where  it  is?"  Mildred  asked.  She 
was  still  searching. 

"No,"  said  I. 

I  made  a  surprised  note  of  it  as  the  first  lie  I  had  told 
her.  My  eyes  were  at  that  moment  frowningly  on  the 
gray,  slaty  disorder  of  the  burned  paper  in  the  grate, 
like  a  hornet's  nest  in  ruins.  I  found  myself  smiling 
at  the  significance  of  that.  Her  eyes  followed  mine 
to  the  grate. 

"You've  been  burning  your  papers!"  said  she. 
"Don't  you  think  you'd  better  put  them  in  the  basket  ? 
When  they're  in  the  grate  they  blow  so." 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  117 

"Yes,"  said  I.  "I'll  put  them  in  the  basket  after 
this." 

That  day  it  was,  Mildred  told  me  Miss  Harpinger 
wanted  to  come  to  the  table.  Heretofore  her  meals  had 
been  served  in  her  room,  but  she  had  an  idea  my  con- 
versation might  be  amusing,  and  she  was  willing  to 
make  the  painful  effort  of  getting  down. 

"I  thought,"  said  Mildred,  "you  could  help  O'Neil 
carry  her." 

O'Neil  was  the  furnace  man,  a  benevolent,  smoky 
visitant.  Even  through  the  pipes  I  got  his  amazingly 
bad  tobacco,  and  though  I  had  kept  him  supplied  with 
my  own  brand,  he  had  accepted  it  as  something  well 
meant  and  kept  on  with  his  own  choice. 

"We  can't  do  that,"  said  I,  in  a  hurry. 

"Why  can't  you?"  Mildred  asked.  "She'd  appre- 
ciate it  very  much." 

"O'Neil  smells  like  the  dickens,"  said  I,  being  a 
coward.  I  was  willing  enough  to  put  it  on  O'Neil. 
I'd  have  put  it  on  Gabriel  to  keep  Mary  Harpinger 
out  of  the  dining  room. 

"I  told  her  so,"  Mildred  said,  "but  she's  very  sweet 
about  it.  You'll  have  to  be  here  about  twenty  minutes 
earlier  than  usual.  That'll  give  you  time  to  dress  for 
dinner,  and  get  her  down  in  season.  She'd  really  ap- 
preciate it  very  much." 

Then  I  broke  down  and  implored  her  not  to  let  this 
thing  be,  not  to  make  me  see  her  waste  her  youth  in 
tendance  on  that  egotistical  old  shell  of  what  had  never 


118  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

been  a  human  creature  worth  the  saving.  If  she  was 
doing  it  for  compassion  alone,  as  I  believed,  would  she 
not  shift  her  tenderness  to  me  even  if  not  to  herself  in 
conjunction  with  me  ?  Mary  Harpinger,  the  sound  of 
her,  the  thought  of  her,  was  poisoning  my  home. 

" Martin,"  said  my  wife,  "wait  a  minute.  She  pays 
us  twenty-five  dollars  a  week." 

It  was  true,  then,  this  was  my  dear's  sacrifice  to  the 
gods  of  home.  I  took  her  hands  and  kissed  them. 

"Mildred,"  I  said,  "if  that's  it,  get  her  out  to-morrow. 
I  can  plug  twice  as  hard  as  I'm  doing  now.  With  the 
house  to  ourselves,  I  shall  be  another  chap  altogether. 
You  can't  tell  her  she's  got  to  go.  Let  me  tell  her." 

"No,"  said  Mildred.  Her  face  settled  into  a  still  sort 
of  look  it  had  at  times,  deeper  than  its  daily  calm. 
"No.  We  can't  do  that." 

And  we  didn't  do  it  for  that  winter,  and  next  summer 
she  went  down  with  Mary  Harpinger  to  Romney,  and  I 
stayed  in  the  cool,  lonesome  city  house,  and  went  down  for 
week  ends  only.  And  some  week  ends  I  didn't  go  at  all. 
I  said  I  had  work  to  do,  and  Mildred  never  questioned 
whether  it  could  have  been  deferred.  The  line  had  been 
effectively  passed,  since  the  day  I  gave  her  that  first 
false  No.  It  was  easier,  in  domestic  exigencies,  to  offer 
conventional  reasons,  and  I  was  not  long  in  learning 
that  these  were  the  only  ones  she  ever  expected.  For 
a  time  I  felt  like  a  scoundrel,  knowing  she  would  not 
give  such  reasons  to  me.  But  by  and  by  I  began  to  see 
she  did  give  me  such  reasons,  and  it  shocked  me  out  of 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  119 

all  telling  for  a  while.  And  then  I  accepted  it  as  a  part 
of  the  scheme  of  social  life,  a  necessary  interchange  of 
courteous  subterfuge. 

I  must  go  back  to  say  that  we  had  not  been  long 
married  before  I  again  told  Mildred  how  aunt  Cely  would 
gladly  call  on  her  but  for  her  poor  feet,  and  proposed 
we  should  run  round  together  straightway  and  see  the 
house.  It  would  be  very  pleasant,  she  said.  Some- 
time we  might.  To-morrow  night,  I  urged.  Not 
to-morrow  night.  Miss  Harpinger  would  need  her. 
And  though  I  proposed  many  a  night  as  nights  came, 
there  was  always  one  or  another  reason,  and  we  never 
went.  And  toward  spring  I  ran  in  alone,  with  a  tardy 
remorseful  courtesy,  and  spent  an  easeful  two  hours 
with  aunt  Cely,  who  professed  herself  as  understanding 
perfectly  how  little  time  a  young  wife  had. 

"The  house  itself  s  enough,"  said  aunt  Cely,  and 
then  she  went  off  into  a  disquisition  on  her  increasing 
weight  and  the  inadequacy  of  her  poor  feet.  I  saw 
she  had  a  vision  of  Mildred  cooking  the  chop  for  dinner 
and,  head  tied  up  in  a  towel,  sweeping  a  floor.  I  left 
that  picture  undisturbed.  I  saw  that  the  probabilities 
were  against  their  ever  meeting,  and  it  gave  me  some 
ease  to  think  of  Mildred,  in  aunt  Cely's  eyes,  too 
irrevocably  bound  to  tasks  to  think  of  neighboring. 
But  I  did  not  see  Mary.  She  was  working  at  the  li- 
brary, aunt  Cely  said,  verifying  some  difficult  proof, 
the  last  being  my  version  of  her  outspoken  scorn  that 
printers  "spelled  so."  And  Blake  was  in  New  York. 


120  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

He  had  been  back  but  once  since  his  going,  and  then  he 
looked  like  a  "shadder,"  and  Mary,  after  sight  of  him, 
had  looked  as  if  she  cried  all  night. 


XIII 

So  Mary  Harpinger  went  to  Romney  with  my  wife 
and  I  stayed  at  home  in  the  house  that  felt  very  large 
and  still  and  barren  of  warm  pleasures.  I  had  gone 
down  two  days  before  and  looked  at  the  rooms  to  see 
if  they  were  really  right,  but  Mildred  had  resisted  my 
desire  to  be  there  at  her  coming  and  see  her  settled. 
It  was  very  pretty  of  her,  for,  as  I  understood,  it  was 
because  she  knew  how  hateful  Miss  Harpinger  was  to 
me.  I  was  partly  grateful  and  also  ruefully  conscious 
of  being,  with  no  will  of  hers,  under  penance,  and  only 
when  I  found  she  was  disposed  to  take  one  of  the  maids 
to  unpack  for  her  did  I  cease  feeling  remorse.  I  had 
learned  that  she  was  constantly  thinking  of  me  in  an 
unerring,  practical  way,  of  my  fitness  for  my  work,  of 
my  conditions  for  doing  it.  She  had  done  a  good  deal 
of  exacting,  steady  drudgery  herself,  and  she  often 
gave  me  the  feeling  that  I  was  a  machine  set  to  do 
certain  tasks  and  to  be  oiled  and  kept  in  condition 
therefor. 

It  was  a  brilliant  day  when  she  went,  with  the  lindens 
heavily  sweet,  and  I  walked  moodily  upstairs  and  sat 
down  at  my  table  where  the  ragged  edge  of  a  story 
pressed  me  to  trim  it  into  shape.  And  as  I  began  with 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  121 

the  mechanical  precision  of  a  brain  that  has  been  accus- 
tomed for  a  long  time  to  working  at  one  sort  of  task, 
I  was  conscious  that  I  didn't  want  to  do  it  at  all.  And 
my  mind,  which  had  not  ceased  clicking  dutifully  for 
all  the  months  of  my  marriage,  opened  its  mouth  and 
yawned  and  stretched  its  arms  and  liked  the  freedom 
of  it,  and  I  sat  and  considered  my  life  and  could  not 
even  see  the  outline  of  those  fake  lives  I  was  concocting. 
I  felt  as  if  I  had  been  pent  for  a  long  time  in  some 
atmosphere  foreign  to  me,  and  now  was  the  hour  to 
breathe  another  air.  I  thought  back  over  my  amazing 
success :  how  I,  who  had  started  on  my  journey  a  rough 
farm  lad  with  no  traditions  save  to  be  honest  and  clean, 
was  living  in  a  spacious,  really  a  lordly  house,  so  far 
as  my  deserts  were  concerned.  I  had  a  wife  who  walked 
and  spoke  and  dressed  like  a  princess,  and  I  was  her 
willing  servitor.  Not  glad,  not  eager:  nothing  had 
broken  the  bonds  of  my  olden  rigor  of  behavior  and 
feeling.  There  had  never  been  for  me,  save  that  night 
before  my  marriage,  such  torches  burning,  such  sharp 
scents  and  savors,  such  dreamlike  worship.  But  I  had 
found  myself  a  citizen  of  a  well-managed  community. 
Everything  in  my  house  was  done  to  the  tune  of  a  per- 
fect accord  with  ordered  life.  We  had  excellent  persons 
to  dinner,  and  sometimes  stupid  ones.  My  wife  had  be- 
come acquainted  with  them  in  the  church  or  through 
the  offices  of  Mary  Harpinger,  who  continued  to  be  "well 
placed,"  and  they  were  all  of  Mary  Harpinger's  choice. 
Sometimes  I  even  fancied  that  the  associates  of  Mary 


122  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

Harpinger's  youth  had  done  with  her  in  her  debased 
old  age.  Only  the  compassionate  ones  had  time  and 
eyes  for  her.  I  began  by  poking  candid  fun  at  these 
musty  residents,  and  even  proposed  having  in  Johnnie 
McCann  and  some  others  of  the  Toasted  Cheese  to 
start  a  little  leaven  in  their  density.  But  Mildred 
gently  implied  that  the  Toasted  Cheese  would  not  do; 
and  when  I  saw  she  regarded  our  heavy  medium  with 
entire  seriousness,  I  ceased  trying  to  lighten  it  for  her. 
On  Tuesdays  she  was  "at  home,"  and  the  same  follow- 
ing dropped  in.  Once  I  did  meet  Johnnie  McCann 
in  the  street  and  took  him  in  with  me  to  such  a  func- 
tion ;  but  when  we  had  got  fairly  within  the  circle  and 
he  heard  what  they  were  talking  about  —  personal- 
ities, mingled  with  retrospective  European  travel  — 
Johnnie  grew  very  red,  wrung  my  hand,  and  hurried 
back  into  the  hall.  I  followed  him,  suspecting  mania, 
and  found  him  halfway  out  of  the  door,  shut  into  the 
crack  indeed  by  the  impulse  of  his  conflicting  desires 
to  explain  and  yet  escape. 

"Ask  her  to  excuse  me,"  said  Johnnie.  I  saw  he 
meant  Mildred.  "I  know  that  lot.  Can't  stand  'em. 
Seen  'em  on  the  boat  going  down  to  Nahant.  Heard 
'em  talk.  I  feel  it  coming  on." 

They  had  brought  on  his  suicidal  mania.  That  was 
more  of  a  feat  than  I  had  ever  seen  within  their  reach. 
I  used  to  wonder  what  was  the  matter  with  them,  or 
what  was  the  matter  with  me  for  not  coalescing.  Vain 
query.  It  went  back  every  time  to  Mildred's  rigorous 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  123 

censorship.  She  simply  would  not  recognize  new 
blood,  and  the  really  old  blood  she  was  privileged  to 
worship  only  through  society  notes,  was  flowing 
another  way,  tides  of  it  uniting  to  form  the  "swim." 
She  was  thrown  back  on  pottering  respectability,  a 
motley  " neither  here  nor  there,"  save  in  its  bank 
account  and  crusted  axioms,  and  with  an  iron  nerve 
made  no  complaint  of  its  sad  quality.  I  used  to  tell 
Mildred  she  never  knew  when  folks  were  dull.  It 
seemed  an  adorable  nescience  in  her,  sprung,  of  course, 
from  kindliness.  I  had  an  idea  there  were  charming 
folk  about  us,  if  we  could  know  them  for  the  unconven- 
tional asking.  I  met  men  down  town  that  looked  to  me 
the  best  kind  of  good  fellows ;  but  their  wives  doubtless 
had  their  own  system  of  exclusion  and  wouldn't  know 
Mildred,  and  I  was  too  busy  to  build  up  acquaintance- 
ship away  from  home.  But  I  did  wish  Mildred  could 
have  taken  in  the  Toasted  Cheese.  Johnnie  never  came 
again,  and  I  had  no  time  to  hunt  out  the  fellows  in 
concourse.  As  the  phrase  goes  they  —  the  dear  fellows 
of  the  other  time  —  dropped  out  of  my  life.  My  own 
intercourse  with  the  familiars  of  my  house  sometimes 
made  a  nervous  sweat  break  out  over  me,  and  again 
roused  me  to  a  murderous  irritation.  I  would  come 
down  early  from  my  study  because  Mildred  asked  me  to 
be  there,  and  find  her  in  a  gown  of  diaphanous  sim- 
plicity, pouring  tea  and  looking  with  her  limpid  candor 
into  the  eyes  of  some  high-born  tortoise,  and  Mary 
Harpinger  in  her  wheeled  chair  a  little  apart  receiving 


124  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

the  court  of  gossip  from  men  and  women  who  had  a 
community  of  feeling  from  having  been  born  in  the 
same  habitat  with  the  same  armor  of  prejudice.  And 
as  soon  as  I  entered  the  circle  about  my  wife  I  began 
to  be  pelted  with  tribute :  stereotyped  compliments 
on  my  stories  of  Little  Italy,  queries  about  what  I  was 
doing  now,  and  imperative  mandates  that  I  should 
never  do  anything  but  "  dialect."  At  first  I  was 
bewildered  and  much  flattered,  I  who  had  never  ex- 
pected to  be  in  the  centre  of  any  concerted  admiration. 
Then  I  began  to  be  a  little  irritated,  being  forbidden 
to  write  in  any  style  but  the  one  that  earned  my  costly 
bread,  and  I  set  about  to  see  why  these  people  would 
swallow  what  they  called  dialect  stories  with  a  mild 
placidity  while  they  even  resented  the  same  passions 
put  under  the  skin  of  persons  of  their  own  ilk.  Was 
it  because  my  " dialect"  stories  had  the  simplicity  of 
nature?  They  had  nothing  of  the  sort.  They  were 
hidebound  sophisticated  guesses  at  the  pabulum  the 
monied  public  was  bound  to  like.  But  if  ever  I  tried 
a  story  of  the  folk  I  saw  at  afternoon  teas,  even  if  I 
liberated  the  creatures  and  tried  to  infuse  into  them  the 
blood  of  common  life,  my  public  would  have  none  of  it. 
I  had  spent  a  good  many  vagrant  minutes  in  wondering 
why,  and  I  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  they  re- 
sented emotion  put  into  the  mouths  and  hearts  of  men 
and  women  outwardly  like  themselves.  It  made  them 
shamefaced.  You  couldn't  tuck  in  a  sly  flip  of  humor 
at  them ;  they  resented  it.  But  thrust  their  own  emo- 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  125 

tion  under  a  workman's  blouse,  and  they  thought  it 
very  pretty  indeed,  or  very  moving. 

Now  that  I  was  left  alone,  should  I  write  what  I 
wanted  to?  And  what  did  I  want  to  write?  Not 
verse.  Not  a  full  stanza  had  beaten  into  my  sluggish 
brain  since  the  night  the  Epithalamium  had  woven  its 
web  to  the  sound  of  wings.  That  feat  I  accounted  a 
miracle.  Poesy  was  too  shining  a  bird  for  me  to  dare 
recapture  her.  The  sheen  on  her  breast  and  wings 
would  have  scorched  me.  But  I  did  hear  her  some- 
times overhead,  flying  otherwhere,  I  knew,  and  my 
heart  stopped  beating  until  she  passed.  Sometimes 
on  a  clearest  morning,  when  the  city  streets  were  lucent 
with  the  breath  of  dawn,  she  would  toss  me  a  word, 
a  phrase,  and  I  would  "catch"  hi  a  rapt  expectancy. 
But  it  was  never  any  more.  The  highest  lot  of  all  was 
not  for  me. 

After  I  had  sat  at  my  table  for  a  comforting  time  and 
mused  and  wondered  in  the  way  of  the  introspective 
whether  I  was  dumb  at  the  loss  of  Mildred  or  only 
relieved  at  the  wider  space  now  Mary  Harpinger  had 
gone,  I  suddenly  got  up  without  volition  and  went 
round  to  Burke  Street  and  rang  the  bell.  The  late 
afternoon  was  very  tranquil  and  sweet,  and  the  dust 
of  traffic  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  transmuted  the  sunset 
light  in  the  river  to  a  glow  of  faerie.  I  had  a  sense  of 
anticipation  upon  me,  the  sort  that  comes  in  earlier 
youth  than  mine  then  was,  of  something  approaching, 
something  to  augment  or  assuage  the  ache  of  years  and 


126  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

so  to  be  wondered  at  in  its  advance.  The  door  opened 
to  me  at  once,  as  if  some  one  had  seen  my  coming. 
Aunt  Cely  stood  there,  her  adipose  bulk  quivering,  her 
pink  cheeks  wet  from  an  excess  of  tears. 

11  Go  right  up,"  said  she.  " Mary's  with  him.  She's 
been  there  all  night  and  all  day.  Maybe  you  can  make 
her  lay  down  and  get  a  mite  o'  sleep." 

I  made  no  doubt  it  was  Blake  she  meant,  but  starting 
up  the  stairs  I  stopped,  caught  by  the  look  of  the  hall. 
Bare  enough  before,  it  was  dismantled. 

"You're  not  moving?"  I  said. 

She  nodded  speechlessly.  But  as  it  was  evident  I 
couldn't  stop  to  question,  she  called  after  me  that  she'd 
always  meant  to  give  up  the  house  when  she  could 
afford  it,  and  " board."  But,  she  cried,  it  had  come 
at  the  wrong  time.  It  was  turning  him  out.  I  ran  up 
the  stairs  fast  yet  as  softly  as  I  could,  not  knowing 
what  I  should  find,  to  John  Blake's  room.  There  was 
no  sound.  At  the  open  door  I  paused.  Blake,  dressed, 
lay  on  the  outside  of  the  bed,  and  Mary  knelt  beside 
him.  Her  arm  was  under  his  neck,  and  his  face,  like 
the  face  of  a  dead  man,  had  sunk  against  her  shoulder. 
Anything  like  the  extreme  and  terrible  meaning  of 
those  faces  I  had  never  seen.  Blake's  was  like  death 
itself,  a  piercing  mask  of  sorrowful  death,  death  by 
starvation  of  soul  or  heart.  The  sweetness  of  the  re- 
laxed mouth,  the  pathos  of  the  closed  lids,  the  wan 
hollows  where  grief  had  pinched  her  little  marks,  — 
these  had  made  John  Blake's  face  such  as  I  had  never 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  127 

seen  it.  If  I  had  not  known  him,  if  I  had  come  upon 
the  face  in  wax  or  clay,  I  should  have  said  it  was  that 
of  one  rejected  by  a  world  he  loved,  the  poet  rebuffed, 
even  the  Redeemer  crucified.  And  Mary's  face  — 
there  was  but  one  name  for  it :  the  Mother  of  Sorrows, 
the  immemorial  type  of  compassionate  grief,  of  one 
who  loves  with  all  her  being  and  sees  what  she  loves 
dying  before  her  and  is  denied  the  supreme  solace  of 
herself  dying  for  what  she  loves.  My  glance  upon 
them  drew  her  eyelids  up.  She  had  not  "lost  herself. " 
She  was  watching.  Her  mouth  smiled  a  little  upon 
me  and  her  pupils  widened,  but  she  did  not  move.  I 
understood.  She  had  a  faint,  unconfirmed  hope  that 
Blake  might  be  asleep. 

XIV 

I  SAT  there  with  Mary  and  watched.  She  paid  no 
more  attention  to  me,  but  our  community  of  vigil  was 
welcome  to  her.  That  I  knew.  And  after  so  long  a 
time  that  I  felt  sympathetically  the  cramp  in  my  own 
shoulder,  knowing  how  she  had  held  him  in  a  fostering 
she  would  not  share,  he  did  really  sleep,  and  then  she 
cleverly  slipped  away  her  arm,  and  gave  him  to  his 
pillow.  I  rose,  and  as  softly  she  preceded  me.  We 
went  down  the  stairs,  and  Mary  led  me  into  her 
own  room.  There  where  she  could  break  without 
likelihood  of  his  hearing  her,  she  did  get  hurriedly  into 
a  chair,  and  put  her  hand  for  a  moment  to  her  face. 


128  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

How  wan  she  was!  It  did  not  need  the  trembling  of 
her  dear  mouth  to  show  me  how  long  and  deeply  she 
had  felt  the  stress  that  had  culminated  in  this  vigil; 
but  I  was  full  of  anxiety  to  know. 

"Mary,"  said  I,  " what  is  it?" 

This  recalled  her  to  the  needs  of  life.  Mary  had  no 
time  for  tears.  She  wiped  her  face  in  a  practical  way, 
and  answered  me  rather  dully,— 

"He's  broken  down,  that's  all." 

"Overwork?" 

"No!"  She  spoke  hotly,  as  if  the  mother  in  her 
raged  at  the  wrong  done  her  young.  "No.  Trouble. 
Work  never  hurt  John  Blake  yet.  Work  is  his  life." 

This  was  pretty  stiff  for  Mary,  who  had  no  habit  of 
intemperate  speech.  For  so  calm  a  creature,  calm  by 
habit  and  the  requirements  of  the  day,  she  was  beside 
herself. 

"Tell  me,  Mary,"  said  I. 

She  began  the  recital  dispassionately.  Montresor 
had  virtually  taken  the  play.  Blake  had  gone  on  to 
New  York,  as  I  knew,  to  watch  the  rehearsals,  to  act,  as 
he  innocently  thought,  as  interpreter  to  Montresor's 
conception  of  the  part.  Montresor  hadn't  been  able 
to  say  enough  about  the  play.  It  was  "great,"  the 
best  thing  written  in  a  century.  He  challenged  nothing 
at  the  start,  verse,  construction,  nothing  whatever. 
But  the  minute  he  began  to  rehearse,  he  challenged 
everything.  Blake  was  not  a  fool,  though  a  poet. 
Something  of  this  he  had  expected.  Montresor  had  a 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  129 

knowledge  he  hadn't.  It  would  have  been  incredible 
if  the  written  word  had  borne  the  test  of  the  spoken  one. 
Yes,  he  had  expected  to  tinker  his  play,  had  gone  on 
to  New  York  really  to  do  it.  But  he  was  not  to  tinker 
it  after  his  own  concept.  Montresor  was  to  dictate 
to  the  last  phrase.  And  Montresor,  who  seemed  a 
boyish  enthusiast  as  he  flashed  a  telegram  of  praise,  in 
action  proved  to  be  more  or  less  of  an  ass,  every  kind 
of  an  ass.  He  not  only  looked  upon  himself  solemnly 
as  the  be-all  and  end-all  of  the  drama,  —  he  might  have 
stopped  there,  and  you  could  have  stomached  him,  — 
but  he  had  no  humility  before  other  forms  of  art.  He 
would  march  with  ruthless  buskin  into  Blake's  own 
field,  and  tell  him  what  to  weed  and  where  to  plant 
the  flowers  of  rhetoric.  And  Blake  had  been  patient, 
raging  inwardly,  but  patient,  Mary  was  sure,  counsell- 
ing himself  to  respect  a  temperament  unlike  his  own. 
But  every  day  it  grew  on  him  more  and  more  indubi- 
tably that  Montresor  was  an  ass,  so  that  he  shuddered 
to  think  of  his  play  in  those  profane  hands  at  all ;  and 
on  that  came  the  climax. 

"He  wanted,"  said  Mary,  her  face  hot  now  and  her 
voice  again  raging,  "  Montresor  wanted  the  end  changed. 
He  found  out  he  wasn't  getting  enough  of  a  part.  You 
know  how  the  play  ends.  The  poet  lives.  Everybody 
lives,  just  as  they  do  in  life."  Here  Mary  was  a  little 
sweeping,  but  I  knew  what  she  meant.  "Mr.  Blake 
never  talked  about  it  to  me.  But  I  copied  it."  There 
was  the  anguish  of  an  old  hurt  here.  Mary  was  never 


130  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

invited  into  the  happy  garden  of  Blake's  toil.  She  had 
to  filch  little  twigs  of  his  achievement  over  the  wall 
between  them.  What  that  cost  her,  only  Mary  knew. 
"Any  way,  Montresor'd  got  to  die  all  over  the  stage. 
My  God!"  For  Mary  to  call  upon  her  God,  a  strictly 
esoteric  deity  locked  into  some  secret  shrine  within  her, 
showed  how  far  she  had  strayed  outside  her  equable 
frame  of  mind. 

"Well?"  said  I. 

She  was  listening  for  a  sound  from  Blake,  and  had 
to  be  reminded  to  go  on. 

"That's  all,"  said  she,  resuming  her  impassive  voice. 
"Mr.  Blake  took  the  play  away  from  him.  From  what 
we  knew  of  Mr.  Blake,  I  guess  he  damned  him  well. 
Then  he  came  back,  came  home,  and  got  on  to  his  bed 
and  stayed  there  like  a  dead  man  —  as  he  is  now." 

I  was  so  young,  so  strong  with  all  kinds  of  strength, 
that  to  me  the  thing  seemed  impossible.  I  essayed 
a  prosaic  comfort. 

"Well,"  said  I,  "it's  outrageous,  but  he'll  get  over 
it.  He'U  sleep  it  off." 

"He  hasn't  slept  for  five  days  and  four  nights," 
said  Mary. 

"He's  sleeping  now." 

"That's  bromide." 

"Have  you  called  a  doctor?" 

"Oh,  yes." 

"What  does  he  say?" 

"Says  he  must  have  had  a  shock  —  and  that  on  the 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  131 

top  of  overwork  and  underfeeding  —  oh,  yes,  he's 
had  a  shock  all  right." 

My  first  thought  was  of  money,  but  I  hardly  dared 
say  so.  Blake  was  the  last  man  to  have  saved  a  dollar. 
Mary  would  have  hoarded  in  anticipation  of  his  need, 
but  she  must  not  be  allowed  to  open  her  too-worn  purse. 
But  I  put  that  aside  to  ask: — 

"Is  he  going  to  stay  on  here?" 

"  No,"  said  Mary.  "  He  can't.  Aunt  Cely's  moving. 
Besides,  he's  ordered  away,  into  the  country.  He's  to 
go  as  soon  as  he  can  pull  himself  together  and  get  a 
little  sleep.  The  doctor  said  sanitarium,  and  he  refused. 
You've  heard  his  No.  There's  nothing  to  be  said  after 
that." 

"No,  you  can't  stay  here,"  I  said,  remembering 
aunt  Cely  in  the  hall. 

"No,"  said  Mary,  indifferently  it  seemed,  but  really 
because  she  had  thought  so  much  over  the  situation  that 
she  was  numb  to  it.  "I  moved  last  week.  I  can  give 
him  my  room  and  find  another  place.  But  he'd  die 
there  of  the  heat." 

Then  the  thought  came  to  me.  It  was  so  natural,  so 
welcome  to  me  that  I  wondered  I  hadn't  spoken  at  first 
seeing  her  the  words  I  said  now. 

"You  must  come  to  me  —  both  of  you." 

Mary  looked  unfeignedly  shocked,  touched  then,  as 
if  she  thanked  me  for  my  part  in  it,  though  not  seeing 
how  it  could  be  accepted. 

"Oh,  no,"  said  she,  "we  couldn't  do  that." 


132  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"I'm  all  alone,"  I  assured  her.     " We'll  get  a  cook." 

Mary  brightened.  I  saw  the  look  leap  into  her  eyes. 
So  I  was  alone  ?  It  seemed  feasible. 

"My  wife  will  be  delighted,"  I  hastened  to  say,  per- 
haps a  little  stiffly,  because  I  saw  Mary  had  doubted 
my  wife. 

"Thank  you,"  said  Mary.  "We'll  come.  But  you 
don't  need  a  cook.  It's  my  vacation.  I  can  do  for 
us." 

And  at  dusk  I  sent  a  carriage,  and  Blake,  wondering 
apparently  why  he  was  so  weak  and  was  being  guided 
hand  and  foot,  came  up  my  steps  leaning  on  Mary's 
arm,  and  I  was  a  proud  and  happy  man  to  have  used 
my  house  to  such  purpose.  I  had  not  yielded  to  Mary's 
protest  that  she  could  do  it  all.  Our  Lydia,  who  came 
back  that  day  for  the  last  consignment  of  her  clothes, 
before  betaking  herself  to  the  shore,  proved  unex- 
pectedly dazzled  by  the  wage  I  offered  her  and  con- 
sented to  see  me  through,  a  part  of  the  way  at  least. 
Mildred  had  never  liked  Lydia.  She  said  the  girl  had 
no  idea  of  her  place,  and  she  should  not  take  her  back 
in  the  autumn.  But  Lydia,  though  a  little  satirical 
in  her  manner  of  looking  out  of  her  pale  eyes  and  under 
her  coarse  red  hair,  suited  me  very  well,  and  I  was 
thankful  for  her.  She  had  asked  whether  Mrs.  Red- 
field  meant  to  come  back,  and  when  I  said  No,  it  was 
then  she  consented. 

Blake  was  put  to  bed  in  a  still,  dark  room  with  the 
wistaria  waving  at  the  window,  and  he  looked  about 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  133 

him  wonderingly  and  said  but  these  words,  —  "The 
Pilgrim  Chamber."  Of  Mary  and  me  he  took  no  notice 
at  all.  We  were  so  familiar  to  him  from  older  times, 
that  I  believe  we  only  made  a  part  of  his  blurred  vistas. 
The  human  creature  was  ever  little  to  him  save  in  its 
heroic  aspect  of  playing  a  part  set  down  for  it  in  his 
embroidered  words. 

That  night  I  wrote  to  Mildred,  a  warm  letter,  full 
of  the  human  tenderness  these  two  saddened  ones  had 
started  up  in  me,  and  including  her  in  the  magic  circle 
of  our  community  of  help.  It  was  wonderful  to  me 
to  have  a  house  and  comforting  drinks  and  a  Lydia 
to  share  with  these  dear  people.  It  quite  waked  me 
out  of  my  pen-driving  somnolence.  The  house  was 
Mildred's  and  mine,  and  together  we  were  giving  it. 
So  I  told  her. 

Next  day  Blake  waked  to  some  realizing  of  his  situa- 
tion topographically,  though  his  condition  he  would 
not  accept.  "Ridiculous!"  he  called  it,  but  was  too 
weak  to  get  up,  too  weak  to  laugh,  as  he  would  scorn- 
fully have  liked  to  do.  I  believe  when  he  was  con- 
fronted with  his  breakfast  on  a  tray,  and  felt  unequal 
even  to  that,  he  cried  a  little  on  Mary's  shoulder,  this 
to  his  own  unmeasured  horror.  But  he  ate  the  breakfast 
in  bits,  doggedly,  to  prevent  Mary's  feeding  him. 

About  ten  o'clock  I  went  into  the  room  and  found 
him  lying  flat,  eyes  closed,  and  Mary  sitting  by  him 
in  a  perfect  stillness  that  seemed  a  device  of  hers  for 
making  herself  invisible.  It  was  all  yearningly  benig- 


134  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

nant,  yet  so  humble,  as  if  she  were  quite  sure  she  would 
have  to  be  forgiven  in  the  end  for  being  there.  Blake 
opened  his  eyes  and  saw  me. 

" You're  a  brick,"  he  said.  "This  is  incredible,  im- 
possible. I  shall  be  on  my  feet  in  a  day  or  two." 

"Yes,"  said  I,  in  the  accepted  way  of  meeting  an 
invalid's  unsupported  hopes,  "in  a  day  or  two." 

Mary  looked  at  me  with  the  pleading  eyes  of  some 
uncomprehended  animal. 

"Don't  you  think,"  said  she,  "when  he  goes  —  into 
the  country,  I  mean  —  I  could  go  too  —  to  see  to 
him?" 

"Stuff!"  said  Blake.  He  had  to  condense  meanings. 
He  was  too  weak  to  amplify  them. 

"I've  got  to  see  to  him,"  said  Mary,  angrily.  She 
was  half  crying.  I  knew  she  had  no  regard  for  the 
speech  of  men.  In  her  working  world  she  thought  she 
lived  outside  it,  in  a  simpler,  kinder  place.  But  though 
Blake,  too,  lived  outside,  I  knew  he  would  not  suffer 
this,  and  so  said  nothing.  I  was  right. 

"You  can't  go  travelling  round  with  fascinating 
young  chaps  like  me,"  he  said.  "You  can't,  dear  girl. 
I'll  pull  out  somehow.  Besides,  what  could  you  do  for 
me?" 

"I  could  do  everything,"  said  Mary,  still  angrily. 
She  was  terrified,  I  saw,  afraid  of  his  downhill  course 
if  she  left  him  to  himself.  What  should  a  long-legged 
chap  like  him,  with  his  soul  in  his  brains,  in  sunsets  and 
rhymes  and  mythic  tragedy,  know  about  milk  and  eggs 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  135 

and  so  many  naps  a  day,  Nature's  humiliating  poultice 
after  she  has  been  defied  ? 

"You  can't  do  it,"  said  Blake,  as  if  he  were  dizzy 
and  clutching  at  the  words  as  the  wheel  went  round. 
"You  can't  travel  with  foundered  chaps  unless  you're 
married." 

"I'd  do  that,"  said  Mary,  humbly.  "I'd  marry  you." 
I  protest  she  spoke  it  as  she  could  have  spoken  to  no 
man  in  health :  only  to  one  gone  back  by  reason  of  his 
weakness  to  the  state  of  infancy.  I  have  since  learned 
that  in  this  sickness  of  his  she  never  expected  Blake  to 
recover.  Or,  at  least,  she  fancied  his  mind  would  not 
come  fully  back.  Besides,  she  craved  the  supreme 
delight  of  tending  him.  To  me,  so  simply  were  the  words 
said,  that  they  brought  no  shock,  no  uneasiness  because 
I  was  there.  I  simply  looked  to  see  how  Blake  would 
take  them.  He  had  shut  his  eyes,  but  he  muttered 
the  same  word  twice:  "Sacrilege!  Sacrilege!"  And 
then  something,  a  familiar  sound  perhaps,  a  step  I  knew, 
an  aura  I  had  learned  to  recognize,  made  me  look  up. 
And  there  in  the  doorway  I  saw  Mildred.  My  first 
thought  was  that  she  must  be  prevented  from  coming  in. 
She  would  hardly  guess,  even  from  his  looks,  how  little 
Blake  could  bear,  and  there  must  be  no  greetings  and 
no  commonplaces.  There  she  stood  an  instant  in  her 
gray  dress,  her  hat  with  the  long  white  veil,  a  diapha- 
nous, almost  a  bride-like  figure,  looking,  as  she  always 
did  to  me,  as  if  she  brought  the  spring.  Her  face,  in 
its  fine  pallor,  had  nothing  of  the  joyousness  of  spring ; 


136  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

but  she  belonged,  I  always  thought,  to  the  first  pale 
days  before  the  buds  half  know  the  sun  will  love  them. 
Mary  saw  her,  following  my  eyes,  and  started.  I  got 
up  and  hurried  out.  I  took  Mildred's  hand  and  drew 
her  away  with  me  and  shut  the  door.  And  then,  we 
two  in  the  hall  alone  together,  I  felt  there  must  be 
passionate  endearment  born  of  my  surprise  at  least, 
and  I  put  my  arms  about  her  and  kissed  her,  first 
on  her  cool,  velvet  cheek,  and  then  on  her  curving  lips. 
And  they,  too,  were  cool.  And  suddenly,  from  the  un- 
expectedness of  her  coming  and  the  warm  memory  of 
Mary's  unthinking  love  for  Blake,  I  found  myself 
urging,  "Love  me  a  little,  Mildred.  Love  me."  It 
was  the  first  time  I  had  ever  put  into  thought  even  a 
reproach  lest  she  did  not  love  me,  and  as  I  spoke,  the 
words  surprised  me.  But  Mildred  had  not  heard  them 
at  all,  or  if  she  did,  she  regarded  them  absently,  as  she 
accepted  my  caress.  She  it  was  who  led  me  now,  into 
our  room,  and  there  she  unpinned  her  hat  and  drew  off 
her  gloves  with  the  extreme  nicety  that  always  marked 
her.  To  my  eyes  she  seemed  to  be  thinking  something 
over,  as  if  she  had  it  to  say  and  had  not  yet  determined 
upon  the  discreet  or  tactful  way  of  saying  it.  As  for 
me,  I  felt  absurdly,  awkwardly  like  a  lover  who  does 
not  know  his  own  deserts. 

"Are  those  the  people?"  she  said  at  last.  And  yet 
she  had  met  Blake  in  that  other  spring. 

"Didn't  you  get  my  letter?"  I  asked. 

"Yes,    I  got  it  this  morning." 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  137 

"Well,  then,  you  know,  dear,"  I  reminded  her.  "I 
wrote  you.  It's  Blake  and  Mary.  You  know  Blake." 

"  What  is  the  woman's  last  name  ?"  she  inquired.  | 

I  thought  an  instant  and  then  laughed  out.  I  really 
had  forgotten  Mary's  last  name.  She  had  been  Mary 
to  all  of  us. 

"By  George,  I  don't  know,"  said  I.  Mildred  looked 
at  me  in  a  small,  frigid  doubt.  But  she  waived  that  for 
more  immediate  issues. 

"Of  course  they  can't  stay  here,"  she  remarked. 
"You'll  have  to  tell  them." 

"Not  stay  here?" 

I  felt  my  heart  beating  to  suffocation.  "For  the 
present  surely.  In  this  empty  house?" 

Mildred  looked  at  me  in  a  kindly  tolerance. 

"It  isn't  right,  you  know,"  she  said.  "It  isn't 
decent." 

The  last  word  hit  me  hard.  I  felt  it  hurting  Mary, 
though  she  didn't  hear  it.  But  I  tried  to  get  hold  of 
myself. 

"The  circumstances  are  peculiar,"  I  said.  "Blake 
may  not  be  at  the  point  of  death,  but  he's  in  the  clutch 
of  the  kind  of  death  he'd  fear  most :  the  only  kind  he'd 
fear.  He  hasn't  lost  his  reason,  but  he's  lost  the  power 
of  using  it.  And  Mary  —  she's  an  angel." 

"Will  you  tell  them?"  said  Mildred,  with  her 
strange  patience. 

I  forgot  that  she  was  Mildred.  It  was  not  that  Blake 
was  dearer  to  me,  or  that  Mary  was ;  only  I  saw  such 


138  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

ineffable   helplessness   and   its   guardian  goodness   so 
coldly  menaced. 

"No,"  I  said.     "I  shan't  tell  them." 

"Very  well,"  said  Mildred.  She  rose,  and  again 
appeared  to  consider  how  she  should  do  it.  "Then 
I  will." 

Before  1  knew  any  more  than  she  what  I  was  about 
to  do,  I  got  up  and  stood  with  my  back  to  the  door, 
thus  facing  her. 

"No,  Mildred,"  said  I,  "you  mustn't  tell  them." 

A  faint  surprise  came  into  her  face,  some  wondering 
respect  for  me,  too,  I  have  thought  since. 

"Why  not?"  she  inquired,  the  same  slight  curiosity 
in  her  voice. 

"Because  I  shan't  allow  it." 

This  was  no  male  assertiveness.  It  was  only  the 
simplest  statement  of  the  things  I  felt  it  impossible  to 
disclose:  they  were  such  big  things,  so  much  bigger 
than  I,  —  the  greatness  of  Blake's  need,  the  magnifi- 
cence of  Mary.  Mildred  came  moving  toward  me  with 
her  usual  slow  grace. 

"Nonsense,"  she  said.  "Of  course  I  shall  be  consid- 
erate. The  woman  will  understand.  I  dare  say  she 
is  all  right.  She  simply  doesn't  know." 

But  I  stood  immovably  at  the  door.  I  had  no 
pride  in  the  situation  or  my  potential  mastery  of  it.  I 
merely  felt  ridiculous ;  and  yet  knew  I  could  not  yield. 

"I  shall  have  to  ask  you,"  said  Mildred,  "to  stand 
aside  and  let  me  pass." 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  139 

I  did  not  answer  her,  nor  did  I  move.  I  seemed  able 
to  do  neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  She  sat  down, 
now  in  a  chair  nearer  me,  and  looked  at  me,  still  thought- 
fully. 

"You  said  Lydia  was  here,"  she  remarked. 

"Yes." 

"I  can't  allow  Lydia  to  stay.  She  understood 
perfectly  she  wasn't  coming  back." 

"It's  an  emergency,"  I  pleaded.  I  was  glad  to  plead 
with  her  for  anything.  "Lydia  sees  it  is.  She'll  be 
a  perfect  trump.  You  see  if  she  isn't." 

Mildred  turned  and  looked  at  the  clock. 

"I  have  to  take  the  two-thirty,"  she  said.  "Miss 
Harpinger  is  very  nervous  to-day." 

I  frankly  damned  Miss  Harpinger,  and  was  glad  to 
relieve  my  feelings  thus  impersonally.  Mildred  rose 
again. 

"No,"  she  said,  "I  won't  dismiss  Lydia.  But  I'll 
ask  her  to  give  me  some  lunch." 

And  again  I  knew  I  could  not  let  her  go,  untrammelled 
by  my  commands,  outside  that  door.  I  laughed,  and 
wished  I  were  a  better  actor. 

"Mildred,"  said  I,  "it's  ridiculous,  but  I'm  going  to 
ask  you  to  let  me  take  you  out  to  lunch." 

She  looked  at  me  for  a  full  minute,  always  thought- 
fully, and  then  she  said  this  extraordinary  thing,  — 

"I  am  to  be  confined  hi  the  fall." 


140  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

XV 

WAS  ever  bright  gift  so  strangely  alloyed  by  the 
manner  of  bestowal  ?  It  was  almost  as  if  the  mother- 
hood in  her  misprized  the  value  of  what  it  had  to  give. 
Instantly  I  was  at  her  side,  on  my  knees  there,  my  arms 
about  her.  All  the  passion  of  my  nature  surged  into 
one  deep  channel :  worship  of  that  ineffable  creature 
set  aside  by  mystic  consecration  from  the  sordidness 
of  life  —  the  mother.  She  looked  at  me  calmly  and 
rather  particularly,  and  I  had  suddenly  an  absurd  idea 
that  she  wished  I  would  take  my  arms  away  because 
the  day  was  growing  warm.  Such  eerie  thoughts  had 
got  into  the  way  of  jumping  into  my  mind  like  ill-inten- 
tioned sprites.  I  had  to  keep  batting  them  on  the  head 
and  tossing  them  away  as  reason  and  good  taste  should 
counsel.  I  kept  my  arms  about  her,  and  as  in  that  day 
when  they  had  found  her  first,  I  said  her  name.  All  the 
wonder  I  had  felt  that  other  spring  gushed  up,  a  fount  of 
adoration.  I  felt  again  exultant  passion,  but  passion 
mixed  with  a  new  mystic  worship.  Suddenly  she  smiled 
at  me  a  little,  and  then  my  happiness  was  sealed.  Mil- 
dred seldom  laughed,  indeed,  perhaps  never  with  an 
abandoned  will,  but  her  smile  was  nicely  pretty. 

"Now  will  you  let  me  speak  to  the  woman?"  she 
inquired.  It  was  almost  as  if  she  had  said,  "Now  I 
have  given  you  something  very  nice,  do  you  mean  to 
pay?" 

I  did  not  think  that  at  the  time,  though  somehow 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  141 

the  words  hurt  me.  I  took  my  arms  away  —  not  un- 
tenderly.  Could  I  ever  be  untender  to  a  gift-bearer 
such  as  this  ?  I  looked  at  my  watch. 

"We'll  have  a  carriage,"  I  said.  "And  a  glorious 
lunch.  Will  that  suit  you  — "  I  wanted  to  add, 
"Little  Mother?"  But  I  did  not  dare. 

She  yielded  definitely.  I  fancy  she  had  come  up 
against  something  in  me  she  did  not  suspect,  and  had 
need  to  think  it  over. 

"Very  well,"  said  she. 

So  she  put  on  her  hat  again,  and  I  took  mine  in  pass- 
ing, and  we  went  out  together  to  the  carriage  stand  at 
the  corner,  I  very  loving  of  her  and  wondering  in  my 
tumultuous  heart  how  I  could  show  her  that  I  had  not 
meant  to  coerce  her  and  that  it  was  hateful  to  me.  I 
knew  I  had  only  forced  her  to  the  way  she  would  have 
taken  if  she  had  understood  Blake's  need  and  Mary's. 

We  had  a  good  little  lunch  in  a  secluded  corner,  and 
talked  much  as  two  familiar  friends  might  have  done. 
But  my  eyes  were  ever  on  her  face,  in  their  new  wor- 
ship, though  this  she  did  not  seem  to  know. 

"I'm  going  down  to  Romney  with  you,"  I  said,  when 
we  were  again  in  the  carriage  and  on  our  way  to  the 
train. 

"No,"  said  she  definitely,  "you  mustn't  do  that. 
Besides,  Miss  Harpinger  would  be  distressed  if  she 
thought  I'd  got  to  give  up  any  more  time." 

Again  I  cordially  cursed  Miss  Harpinger,  and  in- 
quired, with  all  gentleness,  because  I  now  knew  that 


142  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

I  must  be  gentle  to  her  forevermore,  whether  she 
wouldn't  tell  Miss  Harpinger  at  once  that  last  winter's 
arrangement  couldn't  possibly  continue.  Let  her  be- 
gin now  and  make  her  plans  for  the  autumn. 

"I  couldn't  do  that,"  said  Mildred,  definitively. 
"What  she  pays  in  makes  a  serious  difference  to  us. 
I  don't  know  how  we  could  get  along  without  it." 

"I  can  settle  my  own  bills,"  I  said,  rather  roughly, 
"and  yours,  too.  I  can  work  harder  than  I'm  working 
now,  Mildred.  I  feel  as  if  I  could  work  twenty-four 
hours  in  the  day." 

"I  sometimes  think  you  don't  get  the  prices  you 
might,"  said  Mildred,  thoughtfully.  "I  don't  believe 
you  question  what  they  offer.  Now  when  I  sold  the 
Epithalamium,  I  plainly  sent  them  back  their  check 
and  told  them  it  was  not  enough." 

My  heart  began  to  thump. 

"The  Epithalamium?"  I  said.  "What  did  you 
have  to  do  with  it?" 

We  were  almost  at  the  station  gate  and  she  had  more 
to  say.  So  I  suppose  she  answered  hurriedly  and  care- 
lessly, to  put  the  topic  by. 

"Why,  I  had  everything  to  do  with  it.  You  were 
sick,  and  I  came  on  it  in  my  drawer  and  sent  it,  and  I 
got  the  check  for  it  and  made  them  double  it.  You 
could  do  that,  time  after  time.  Your  name  would 
stand  it." 

My  heart,  I  thought,  had  stopped,  like  a  misused 
watch.  But  I  could  not  believe  what  it  seemed  I  must 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  143 

believe.  I  had  accepted  my  publishing  of  the  Epitha- 
lamium  as  among  the  sorry  inexplicable  things  of  life ; 
and  since  I  must  have  done  it  in  the  coming  delirium 
of  my  illness,  I  was  not  to  blame.  It  was  simply  an  ill, 
unchancy  deed.  But  that  the  bride  to  whose  white 
consciousness  it  should  have  been  the  gift  of  prophetic 
opening  of  gates  that  the  queen  of  innocence  and  beauty 
might  pass  through  —  this  I  could  not  believe.  Yet 
I  must  accept  it,  for  she  herself  told  me  it  was  true. 

"You  mustn't  work  too  hard,"  she  was  saying  now. 

"No."  I  took  her  slim,  gloved  hand,  moved  by  her 
thought  of  me. 

"It  just  defeats  itself,  overwork,"  she  said.  "You 
give  out,  and  its  worse  in  the  end.  Martin  "  —  the 
carriage  was  drawing  up,  and  she  regarded  me  quite 
earnestly,  "is  your  life  insured?" 

I  knew  what  she  was  thinking :  of  the  child  and  his 
pathetic,  hungry  little  needs. 

"Yes,"  I  said.  "I  carry  rather  a  heavy  insurance. 
I  thought  I'd  told  you.  I'll  double  it,  though.  Don't 
fear,  darling.  We'll  make  him  safe." 

Then  I  went  with  her  to  the  train,  holding  her  hand 
all  the  way,  quite  confident  that  the  universe  itself 
must  know  we  were  lovers,  and  again  she  refused  to 
have  me  go  with  her.  But  just  as  I  was  leaving  her 
she  said  in  a  practical  way  she  had,  as  if  the  thing  didn't 
matter  much,  but  nevertheless  she  would  undertake 
to  carry  it  out,  — 

"I  shall  be  up  again  on  Tuesday.     I've  some  shop- 


144     ,  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

ping  to  do.  Your  friends  will  be  gone  then,  won't 
they?" 

Well,  I  didn't  mean  to  see  that  they  were  gone,  but 
how  could  I  tell  her  so,  with  that  roseate  dawn  about 
us?  Instead  I  bent  over  and  whispered  the  words  in 
her  ear,  —  "Little  Mother,"  and  then  I  left  her. 

I  made  speed  home,  for  I  did  not  know  how  self- 
possessed  Mary  would  be  in  my  absence,  nor  whether  she 
would  order  food.  But  Lydia  had  served  lunch,  it  was 
well  over,  and  Blake  was  by  himself  and  Mary  waiting 
for  me  in  the  big  room  below.  It  went  the  length 
of  the  house,  and  Mildred,  who  never  erred  in  taste, 
had  kept  it  in  gray  and  green,  and  in  winter  warmed  it 
with  blazing  logs  and  flowers.  But  now  it  was  a  cool 
retreat,  to  the  eye  as  to  the  feeling,  and  when  Mary  got 
up  from  the  deep  couch  in  the  darkest  corner  and  came 
forward  to  meet  me,  I  felt  she  ought  to  look  more 
comfortable  than  she  did.  She  had  got  back  her  air 
of  accuracy  and  crispness  in  her  freshened  business 
suit.  In  her  shirt  waist  and  linen  skirt  she  might  that 
moment  have  been  going  to  her  day's  work;  yet  she 
was  not  out  of  keeping  with  the  beautiful  simplicity  of 
the  room.  Mary  carried  her  own  atmosphere,  and  it 
was  ever  a  noble  one.  I  gave  her  hand  a  pat,  and  we 
went  in  and  sat  down  in  that  darkest  corner.  But  I  saw 
her  face  was  worried.  It  had  lost  its  acute  anticipative 
premonition  when  I  had  taken  her  home  here  and  as- 
sured her  that  all  was  well.  Now  her  dear  brows  were 
knitted  again  and  her  mouth  had  its  lonesome  curve. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  145 

But  she  smiled  at  me.  Mary  never  let  it  be  seen  if 
she  was  down.  She  began  at  once  to  reassure  me,  as 
she  thought. 

"I've  telephoned  Ellen  Tracy." 

I  didn't  know  who  she  was,  and  Mary,  seeing  that, 
went  on :  — 

"You've  heard  of  Ellen  Tracy.  She's  got  loads  of 
money,  and  she  keeps  vacation  homes  for  —  well,  for 
folks  like  me."  Mary  looked  at  me  with  her  brave 
smile  that  waved  its  banner  and  shouted  at  you  that 
she  was  poor  in  the  world's  goods,  knew  she  always 
should  be  poor,  and  you  might  as  well  classify  her. 

"There's  nobody  like  you,  Mary,"  I  said,  seizing  upon 
the  most  obvious  part  of  her  speech. 

"Not  exactly,"  said  Mary.  "Praise  be.  But  Ellen 
Tracy  has  started  three  homes  in  three  different  places, 
and  there's  a  vacancy  at  her  own  big  house  at  Hopeful 
Sands.  So  I'm  going  to  take  Mr.  Blake  there  to- 


morrow." 


I  was  relieved,  of  course.  But  I  was  also  unreason- 
ably disappointed.  Here  was  my  house  —  Mildred's 
and  mine  —  here  were  Blake  and  Mary  in  their  need. 
I  had  meant  to  be  selfishly  happy  as  a  king,  endowing 
them  with  all  that  was  mine.  Mary  read  my  face. 
She  got  up  and  came  to  me.  She  took  my  hand  and 
kissed  it,  thanking  me  in  the  quick  little  caress  for  lov- 
ing Blake  as  I  did  and  for  wanting  to  give  what  she 
wouldn't  let  him  take.  She  betrayed  no  hint  of  having 
seen  Mildred  in  the  doorway.  She  never  spoke  of  that. 


146  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

Yet  I  knew.    And  this  was  why,  in  the  extremity  of 
their  need,  she  was  flying  off  to  Ellen  Tracy. 

"I  know,"  said  Mary.  "It's  dear  of  you.  And 
it's  a  wonderful  house.  Nothing  could  be  better, 
except  the  country,  of  course.  You  see  that's  it. 
Mr.  Blake  must  be  got  into  the  country." 
'>.  And  then  we  settled  down  to  talk  about  Blake. 
Didn't  she  think,  I  asked,  that  a  few  weeks  would  set 
him  up  and  he'd  be  his  old  self  ?  Mary  was  afraid  not. 

"But  what  the  mischief  does  it  mean,"  I  said,  "for 
a  man  of  Blake's  inches  to  give  out  like  a  sick  girl 
because  he's  had  a  disappointment?  He's  simply 
found  out  that  Montresor's  an  egotistical  dolt." 

"Ah  yes,  you  might  think  so,"  said  Mary.  "But  he'd 
been  overworking  for  a  couple  of  years  at  least.  He's 
a  perfect  child  about  his  food  —  " 

Yes,  I  agreed,  Blake  always  seemed  rather  bored 
when  he  was  called  upon  to  eat.  Felt  queer,  and  when 
you  reminded  him  it  was  lunch  time,  thought  lunch 
was  a  superfluity. 

"Yes.  And  living  alone  in  New  York  without  aunt 
Cely  or  me  to  spudge  him  up,  think  what  it  must  be. 
And  then,  you  see,  when  the  crash  came,  he  was  just 
down  enough  to  believe  it  meant  he  hadn't  made  good. 
Montresor  —  that  great  big  Moloch  of  a  matinee  idol, 
with  his  valet  and  his  dinners  —  well,  Montresor  just 
dominated  him  then  and  made  him  think  what  he 
pleased.  Montresor  wanted  to  get  out  of  the  play,  and 
he  said  it  was  no  good  and  Mr.  Blake  believed  him." 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  147 

"  Believed  him,"  I  repeated  stupidly.  "  Believed 
he  hadn't  made  good.  Believed  he  never  could.  For 
all  the  best  of  him  was  in  that  play  and  if  that  was 
rot—  " 

"Yes,"  she  concluded,  in  answer  to  my  look.  "That 
was  what  Montresor  said." 

So  we  sat  silent,  Mary  and  I,  and  considered,  each 
on  a  separate  road,  what  could  be  done  to  get  back 
the  soul  of  a  man  after  it  had  been  mishandled.  But 
the  roads  met  presently. 

"Shall  you  stay  down  there?"  I  asked. 

"A  while,"  said  Mary.  "I  was  just  thinking  that. 
He  could  be  made  to  believe  I  was  going  anyway  for 
my  vacation." 

Then  I  asked  a  stupid  question,  but  I  protest  I  did 
not  at  the  moment  remember  just  what  had  called 
forth  the  word  I  had  in  mind.  I  could  only  hear  Blake 
saying  it. 

"What  did  he  mean,  Mary,  by  saying  'Sacrilege, 
sacrilege/  that  time?" 

And  at  once  I  remembered,  and  would  have  recalled 
my  question  if  I  could.  Mary  met  it  bravely. 

"Why,"  said  she,  "he  meant  marrying  me.  That 
would  be  sacrilege  because  he  doesn't  love  me.  Mr. 
Blake  is  very  religious  about  those  things.  And  of 
course,"  said  Mary,  simply,  "it  would  be  sacrilege. 
But  if  he  was  to  die  or  lose  his  mind  or  give  out  so  he 
couldn't  earn  anything,  why,  I  shouldn't  care  about 
that.  I  should  be  on  hand,  that's  all." 


148  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

Mary  had  no  elastic  ideas  of  right  and  wrong,  but 
some  things  looked  very  big  to  her,  and  others,  such  as 
her  own  desert,  very  small.  She  sat  gazing  at  me  in 
such  simplicity  of  devotion  and  worried  reflection  over 
Blake  that  I  could  not  tell  her  what  I  thought  of  it  all. 
There  was  nothing  so  simple  in  its  beneficence  as  Mary, 
nothing  save  the  bounty  of  the  earth.  But  that  has  to 
be  wrung  out  of  the  earth,  which  is  as  ready  to  be  cruel 
as  kind.  And  you  had  only  to  look  a  normal  wish  for 
Mary  to  wonder  whether  she  could  get  it  for  you.  It 
made  the  old  planet  seem  warm  and  sweet,  that  and 
what  I  had  just  so  strangely  heard.  It  was,  I  thought, 
a  beautiful  world,  and  my  heart  said  to  me  with  a  voice 
of  its  own,  a  voice  I  had  never  quite  imagined  until  now, 
"Little  Mother." 


XVI 

IN  two  days  more  we  went  down  to  Hopeful  Sands, 
Blake  wanly  distrusting  the  scheme,  but  yielding  to 
us  because  he  had  lost  all  his  old  assertion,  and  we,  I 
suppose,  seemed  too  crudely  strong  for  him.  Hopeful 
Sands  had  not  been  discovered  by  the  philistines. 
When  they  did  discover  it  at  last,  Ellen  Tracy  had 
bought  up  the  entire  island  and  was  safe.  That  is  not 
so  rapacious  as  it  sounds.  She  would  never  have  wanted 
privilege.  Only  she  did  work  very  hard  to  safeguard 
the  solitude  and  birds  and  greenery  that  were  to  make 
a  heaven  for  her  vacation  houses.  Hopeful  Sands, 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  149 

though  it  did  not  look  it  at  first  glimpse,  was  an  island  ; 
but  it  was  joined  now  to  the  mainland  by  a  willow- 
embowered  causeway  never  flooded  except  in  spring,  but 
wet  at  high  tide.  When  you  had  passed  the  causeway, 
you  fell  into  a  marvellous  undergrowth  of  alder,  button- 
bush,  azalea,  all  the  beauties  the  wild  world  throws 
out  to  tangle  our  hearts  —  nay,  for  the  wild  world 
thinks  nothing  of  us  at  all.  It  breathes,  and  drinks  in 
water  and  sun,  and  the  atoms  move,  and  there  is  beauty. 
The  day  was  hot  when  we  went  down,  and  at  the  far 
end  of  the  causeway  a  phaeton  met  us.  Blake  was  tired 
from  the  trip,  but  even  he  waked  slightly  to  the  vivid- 
ness of  all  this  bourgeoning,  and  I  could  see  his  nostrils 
tremble  with  the  fragrance  of  azalea  and  warm  pine. 
It  was  a  short  drive  through  a  winding  way,  always 
bosky,  and  suddenly  we  came  out  on  velvet  turf  and  a 
gray,  gambrel-roofed  house  rich  with  carmine  roses, 
and  in  the  doorway,  under  the  shade  of  the  white 
pillared  porch,  Ellen  Tracy  stood  awaiting  us.  I  had, 
on  seeing  her,  the  strangest  sensation,  one  I  cannot  now 
describe.  I  can  only  say  even  to  myself,  that  it  was  as 
if  I  had  known  her  before,  and  in  finding  her,  it  was  as 
if  I  had  just  come  home.  She  was  rather  a  tall  woman, 
with  dark  hair,  soft  and  with  shadows  deeper  than  its 
blackness,  parted  and  made  into  a  knot  of  an  old  sim- 
plicity. Her  features  were  delicately  drawn,  yet  noble, 
her  mouth  was  large,  and  her  smile  beautiful.  She 
had  a  majestic  way  of  carrying  herself,  a  wonderful 
trick  of  holding  her  head,  —  I  found  myself  repeating, 


150  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"a  neck  like  a  tower,"  -and  yet  in  all  this  panoply 
of  womanliness,  she  was,  I  had  to  remind  myself,  just 
a  girl.  Ellen  Tracy  was  young,  but  she  was  enabled 
to  take  her  own  way  through  the  lone  pathways  of 
her  lovingness  to  mankind  by  the  aura  of  something 
emotionally  mature.  I  was  in  a  state  of  tense  feeling 
that  had  not  gone  down  in  me  since  Mildred  had  brought 
me  her  gift,  and  quite  naturally,  it  seemed,  as  it  does 
in  dreams,  when  we  traversed  the  lovely  pathway  to 
the  lovely  house,  I  saw,  for  an  instant,  Ellen  Tracy 
with  my  child  in  her  arms.  And  yet  perhaps  it  was  not 
my  child.  Perhaps  it  was  the  symbol  of  the  eternal 
child,  the  perpetually  expected  and  beloved  that  my 
heart  placed  next  her  heart  to  be  cherished  there.  She 
wore  a  white  dress  made  with  the  greatest  simplicity, 
and  about  the  neck  was  a  fine  chain  of  gold.  I  suddenly 
wondered  what  Mary  was  thinking,  and  I  turned  to  see. 
Mary  had  for  the  moment  forgotten  Blake.  She  was 
leaning  forward,  her  lips  parted,  a  shade  more  of  color 
in  her  cheeks,  and  through  the  lips  her  breath  came  fast. 
But  as  we  neared  and  drew  up  at  the  steps,  the  spell 
broke.  Ellen  Tracy  did  not  seem  less  beautiful,  only 
entirely  human.  She  smiled  at  us  in  a  welcome  that 
warmed  us,  and  came  down  a  step  to  give  her  hand  to 
Mary  and  then  to  me.  Of  Blake  she  took  not  the  slight- 
est notice  beyond  the  one  quick  glance  that  told  her 
he  was  the  patient  and  now  sore  spent.  A  maid  came, 
and  a  man  to  take  up  the  trunks  that  were  behind  us 
in  a  cart,  and  Ellen  Tracy  herself  carried  off  Blake  and 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  151 

Mary  to  their  rooms,  leaving  me  in  the  cool,  sweet  house, 
furnished  with  such  simplicity  in  colonial  lines,  with 
panels  and  fireplaces  and  all  the  reverenced  reminders 
of  an  olden  time  that  I  seemed  to  be  sinking  happily  back 
into  the  company  of  my  forbears.  I  had  a  time-table 
with  me,  and  I  meant  to  take  the  next  train  back, 
walking  over  the  causeway  to  the  station,  to  give  no 
trouble.  I  wandered  about  the  darkened  room,  picking 
up  a  book  here  and  there.  Of  books  there  were  plenty, 
selected,  as  I  began  presently  to  guess,  to  fit  all  com- 
plexions of  mind  rather  than  one  catholic  taste.  There 
was  the  Golden  Treasury,  a  pile  of  anthologies,  and  in 
a  set  of  shelves  between  windows,  set  where  light  would 
fall  on  them  invitingly,  novels,  the  oldest  and  the  new- 
est aspirant.  There  was  a  case  of  fairy  tales,  and 
modestly  on  a  more  secluded  wall,  history  and  the  poets. 
It  looked  very  much  as  if  the  one  who  had  selected 
this  store  were  saying  to  the  reader,  with  some  diffi- 
dence, "  Don't  feel  obliged  to  be  academic.  Here  are 
the  stories.  Take  a  bite.  But  if  you're  really  hungry 
for  something  else,  why,  just  go  and  look  for  yourself." 
And  this  was  Ellen  Tracy's  fixed  and  even  passionate 
determination :  that  her  house  was  not  her  own  but  an 
inn  to  be  arranged  for  the  ease  of  guests.  As  this 
dawned  on  me  more  and  more,  she  came,  and  seeing 
that  I  had  but  waited  to  take  leave  of  her,  she  said  to  me 
at  once :  — 

"  You'll  stay  to  luncheon.    There's  a  good   train 
about  five,  the  cool  of  the  day." 


152  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

I  ought  to  have  been  busy  at  home  earning  bread  for 
my  little  son  —  from  the  first  moment  I  knew  he  was 
to  be  a  son  —  and  buying  Mildred's  release  from 
Miss  Harpinger,  but  I  wanted  so  immeasurably  to 
stay  that  I  made  no  question  of  it.  I  could  work  that 
night  with  a  pen  quickened  by  this  richness  of  new 
circumstance  to  spur  it  on. 

"Come  out  here,"  she  said. 

She  opened  a  door  to  a  vine-shaded  veranda,  and  there 
beyond  were  trees  and  trees  and  promise  of  bosky 
coverts,  and,  not  the  sea,  but  still  water  like  a  river  at 
full  flood.  She  took  my  silence  for  the  pleasure  it  was, 
and  smiled. 

"We  have  breakfast  out  here,"  she  said.  "We 
almost  live  here.  Now,  Mr.  Redfield,  won't  you  tell 
me  about  your  friends?" 

We  were  in  wicker  chairs  by  the  rail,  turned  slightly 
to  face  each  other,  and  I  considered  what  I  could  tell. 
Her  eyes,  full  of  a  sweet  seriousness,  questioned  mine. 
I  understood  her  perfectly.  She  wanted  no  confidential 
gossip  over  their  needs,  to  classify  them  in  a  physician's 
officious  usage.  No,  she  wanted  only  a  hint  that 
should  help  her  own  hospitality  to  offer  and  not  to  urge. 
•  "What  did  Mary  tell  you  ? "  I  asked.  Again  I  sought 
about  absurdly  for  Mary's  last  name  and  found  it. 
Mary  Owen.  Yes,  that  was  it.  "Miss  Owen,"  I 
supplemented. 

"She  said  he  was  broken  down.  Said  he'd  had  a 
shock." 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  153 

"Do  you  know  who  he  is?" 

I  put  this  at  a  venture.  Blake  had  had  so  exactly 
the  fate  of  the  living  poet  that  I  could  not  expect  even 
a  woman  who  looked  as  this  one  did  to  have  heard  of 
his  thin  book. 

"Why,  yes!"  She  was  amazed  at  me.  The  answer 
leaped  to  her  lips.  "He's  Blake,  the  poet." 

"Good  for  you!"  I  was  pleased,  though  not  for 
Blake.  He  could  afford  to  wait  a  half  century  or  so 
for  his  bays.  I  was  content  with  her,  because  she  was 
fulfilling  every  promise.  "Well,  Blake  has  broken  down. 
Overwork,  disappointment,  shock.  And  Miss  —  " 

"I  see  you  call  her  Mary,"  she  said,  with  her  swift 
coming  smile.  "Call  her  Mary  to  me." 

"Mary  is  his  friend,  just  as  she's  the  friend  of  every 
lame  dog  of  us.  And  she's  seeing  him  through." 

She  nodded  in  what  seemed  a  perfect  comprehen- 
sion, looked  thoughtful  a  moment,  and  then  glanced 
up  at  me  with  that  sudden,  heavenly  smile. 

"Well,"  said  she,  "they  must  stay  here  as  long  as 
ever  they  like.  There'll  be  no  other  guests  in  this  house 
for  the  present.  And  aunt  Patten's  coming  to-night. 
She's  an  old  lady,  very  wise." 

Did  she  then,  I  wondered,  take  Mildred's  view  that 
the  circumstances  were  unusual,  and  had  aunt  Patten 
been  sent  for  to  give  the  situation  countenance?  But 
at  least  this  was  her  way  of  doing  it.  The  guardian 
aunt  was  summoned  from  the  deeps  of  old-lady  discre- 
tion. The  unclassified  were  not  turned  away.  And 


154  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

then  I  realized  that  I  had  Mildred  up  before  the  bar 
of  this  comparison,  and  was  ashamed.  Miss  Tracy 
was  speaking  now  with  a  quick  sincerity,  as  if  she  had 
to  reassure  something  in  my  own  mind. 

"You  know  I'm  perfectly  well  aware  that  this  is  a 
great  honor  to  me." 

"What  is,  Miss  Tracy?" 

"It's  an  enormous  honor  to  have  John  Blake  here 
in  my  house,  with  the  chance  of  getting  him  into  shape 
a  bit  by  air  and  rest.  And  as  for  this  wonderful 
Mary,  —  why,  anybody  can  see  what  she  is." 

I  was  laughing  a  little  at  her  headlong  eagerness. 

"What  is  she?"  I  asked.     "What  is  Mary?" 

She  laughed  back  at  me.  Her  face  became  delicious 
when  she  did  that.  It  lost  its  grave  maturity,  and  grew 
all  innocently  fair.  I  believe  it  even  found  a  dimple 
or  two,  a  beguiling  irregularity  of  its  own,  to  throw  it 
into  kinship  with  the  smiles  of  the  common  world. 

"Mary  is  a  wonder,"  said  she.  "I  never  saw  such 
a  face.  How  the  child  must  have  lived  to  have  got 
such  things  into  it  so  young." 

The  child!  was  Mary  young,  then?  I  felt  my  igno- 
rance of  her,  and  was  again  ashamed.  Perhaps  Mary 
had  been  too  long  one  who  was  to  serve  and  never  be 
given  her  natural  birthright  of  maiden  regnancy. 
Perhaps  Mary  needed  to  reign  a  little,  and  not  be  under 
every  foot,  even  the  foot  of  Blake,  the  mighty. 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Miss  Tracy.  "I'm  very  lucky  to 
have  got  hold  of  Mary.  I  shan't  let  her  go  in  a  hurry." 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  155 

Then,  with  no  persuasion  but  that  of  her  warm  and 
willing  mind,  I  began  and  told  her  the  story  of  aunt 
Cely's  family  boarding-house,  always  with  Mary  as 
the  centre  of  kindly  service,  and  drifted  naturally  on  to 
the  Toasted  Cheese,  and  sketched  the  boys  as  well  as 
I  might.  Of  Johnnie  McCann  and  his  suicidal  mania 
she  could  not  have  enough.  When  I  first  saw  Ellen 
Tracy  I  had  guessed  she  was  saint  or  angel.  Now  I 
began  to  suspect  that  humor — a  kindly,  sweet  perception 
of  the  ironies  of  life — threaded  her  through  and  through. 
She  seemed  determined  to  understand  Johnnie,  the  natal 
bent  of  him,  not  that  he  was  Johnnie,  but  because  he 
was  queer. 

"You  don't  think  it's  a  pose?"  she  queried  alertly, 
when  I  had  given  an  instance  of  his  perfectly  practical 
dealings  with  his  mania. 

"Oh,  no,  I'm  sure  it  isn't." 

"You  think  he  really  feels  like  killing  himself?" 

"Oh,  yes." 

"But  why?" 

Why  ?    I  hadn't  gone  into  Johnnie  to  that  depth. 

"I  haven't  the  least  idea,"  I  said.  "I've  taken  it  for 
granted.  Prenatal,  I  suppose."  That  sounded  rather 
reasonable,  and  I  felt  I  had  made  good  until  she  said:  — 

"Wouldn't  hypnotism  set  him  right  ?" 

I  was  startled.  We  were  going  into  things  with  a 
vengance. 

"But,  bless  you,"  said  I,  "I  don't  think  Johnnie  wants 
to  be  cured." 


156  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"You  don't?"    She  stared  at  me. 

"No.  It's  a  part  of  him,  like  his  taste  for  lychee  nuts 
and  his  lavender  shirts.  Why,  no.  You  mustn't  take 
away  Johnnie's  mania.  He'd  be  as  lonesome  as  the 
deuce." 

Then  she  got  into  a  gale  of  laughter,  and  I  began  to 
learn  about  her  what  I  found  afterward  to  be  supremely 
true :  that  she  was  possessed  by  the  most  sweet  and 
inordinate  interest  in  human  creatures.  It  was  not 
that  she  wanted  to  pick  and  steal  their  secrets  or  to 
profane  what  was  theirs.  She  loved  them,  that  was 
all.  She  laughed  at  them,  but  so  gently,  so  sweetly 
that  it  could  not  hurt,  as  women  possessed  by  the  love 
of  children  go  into  passionate  gusts  and  barter  knowing 
smiles  over  "cunning"  ways.  We  talked  fast  and  hard 
that  morning.  I  do  not  think  I  ever  talked  so  runningly 
with  any  one.  And  yet  we  said  nothing  really  about 
ourselves.  I  did  not  mention  Mildred,  though  that 
ecstatic  secret  was  warm  at  my  heart  and  throbbed 
with  it  and  made  my  words  flow  in  a  happier  order  and 
my  laughter  more  exultant.  And  I  could  even  have 
wished  Ellen  Tracy  had  known  this  thing  about  me  save 
that,  in  a  way,  it  never  seemed  necessary  for  her  to  be 
told  facts  at  all,  much  as  she  might  love  them.  Her 
sympathy  was  perfect  without.  I  had  assumed,  on 
Mary's  tale  of  her  general  kindliness,  that  she  had  a 
theory  of  life,  of  the  division  of  goods,  so  far  as  that  might 
be,  of  rules  to  make  the  community  thrive.  Nothing  of 
the  sort.  I  questioned  her  boldly,  thinking  she  had 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  157 

a  system  and  would  love  to  set  it  forth.  Not  at  all. 
She  was  not  to  be  classified.  She  was  neither  philan- 
thropist with  a  passion,  socialist  nor  Christian  with  a 
nostrum.  She  just,  she  said,  in  a  homely  phrase  that 
brought  sparks  into  her  eyes,  liked  to  have  company. 
She  had  a  good  deal  of  money  and  no  folks  but  aunt 
Patten.  And  then  she  suddenly  gave  over  talking 
about  it,  as  if  it  were,  if  not  distasteful  to  her,  surpris- 
ingly out  of  the  way. 

Luncheon  time  came,  and  Mary  joined  us,  looking 
rather  timid,  but  with  an  air  of  almost  ardent  expect- 
ancy, as  if  this  were  a  fairy  house  and  she  trembled 
at  the  next  step  into  another  room.  The  luncheon  went 
off  a  homely  sweet  way,  where  everything  was  so 
fastidious.  It  seemed  to  be  understood  that  Blake 
was  to  have  his  trays  in  his  own  room.  I  didn't  see 
him  before  going,  but  at  something  after  four  the  car- 
riage came  and  I  said  good-by  to  my  hostess  and  Mary. 
Mary  looked  a  little  frightened.  What  was  I  doing, 
her  eyes  seemed  to  ask,  leaving  her  in  the  company  of 
all  this  hospitality  and  angelhood  ? 

"Come  again,"  said  Miss  Tracy,  in  a  simple  common- 
place. "Mr.  Blake  will  want  to  see  you." 

So  I  left  them  standing  on  the  doorstep,  she  in  her 
angelhood  and  Mary  like  a  humble  servitor,  and  went 
to  town.  That  night  I  sat  up  late  to  write.  But  I 
couldn't  write  at  all,  though  the  need  of  my  earning 
money  had  grown  a  hundred  times  more  urgent.  I  had 
too  many  things  to  think  over.  They  came  pressing 


158  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

upon  me,  the  wonder  of  what  Mildred  had  told  me,  and 
other  things  I  could  not  let  myself  consider.  The 
Epithalamium!  She  had  sold  it.  Mildred  had  sold 
it.  That  was  as  far  as  I  let  myself  go.  My  mind  kept 
telling  me  that,  and  there,  with  the  bare  fact,  I  stopped 
it  every  time.  It  should  make  no  comment.  But 
toward  midnight,  when  I  was  about  throwing  over  the 
bad  job  of  writing,  I  got  up  to  go  to  bed,  sat  down 
again,  drew  my  paper  toward  me  and  began  a  novel. 
I  wrote  the  title  fair  and  large :  Ellen  Tracy.  That 
was  not  to  be  its  name  of  course,  and  it  was  not  really 
about  Ellen  Tracy,  for  I  knew  nothing  about  her  at  all. 
But  I  somehow  felt  as  if  I  were  devoting  the  manuscript 
to  noble  ends  if  it  had  her  name  at  the  top. 

XVII 

MILDRED  did  not  come  up  the  next  Tuesday  as  she 
had  threatened.  (That  is  an  ungracious  word,  but 
I  let  it  stand.)  I  had  written  her  at  once  that  Blake 
and  Mary  had  gone,  and  the  matter  of  their  brief  stay 
never  again  came  up  between  us.  I  was  madly  at  work, 
not  on  short  stories,  though  Rees  and  Dresser  spurred 
me  in  almost  daily  letters,  but  on  my  novel.  So  far,  I 
thought  it  rather  good.  It  surprised  me,  when  I  read  over 
the  pages  born  of  a  night's  ferment,  not  alone  because 
it  went  so  well  but  because  it  was  so  foreign  to  anything 
I  had  done  or  even  thought.  These  things  I  was  setting 
down  in  a  pelting  haste  were  perhaps  not  extraordinary, 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  159 

but  they  were  different  things  from  what  I  had  previously 
found  in  myself.  Had  I  been  living,  I  asked  myself,  a  life 
my  outer  self  knew  nothing  about?  Were  there  all 
the  time  forming  in  me  working  forces  like  the  inner 
growth  of  a  tree,  and  should  I  never  quite  know  what 
they  were  until  I  called  my  pen  to  liberate  them?  If 
that  was  so,  then  it  was  even  a  more  wonderful  thing 
to  be  a  writer  of  any  degree  than  I  had  guessed. 

I  had  been  twice  to  see  Blake  and  Mary,  and  the 
second  time  met  aunt  Patten,  an  extraordinary  little 
creature  with  white  hair  ani  a  hook  nose  who  looked 
you  through  and  through  and  said  the  most  amazingly 
abrupt  things  :  one  that  she  hoped  to  heaven  she  could 
die  before  snowfall.  She  thought  the  chances  were 
greater  in  summer,  you  ran  such  a  gantlet  of  microbes 
and  heat.  Ellen  Tracy  only  smiled  when  she  said  these 
things,  in  an  ineffably  tender  way  that  meant,  I  thought, 
an  intimate  understanding.  But  Mary,  who  seemed 
now  to  be  working  all  over  the  house,  said  boldly:  — 

"Oh,  Mrs.  Patten,  do  you  want  to  die?" 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Patten,  clicking  her  needles.  "And 
so  would  you  if  you  were  seventy  -three."  She  looked 
me  through  and  through.  "So  you're  the  author," 
she  said,  not  unkindly,  and  I  acknowledged  I  was. 

But  Ellen  Tracy  never  hinted  at  my  author's  work. 
Finally  I  got  a  little  fractious  about  it,  and  wondered 
whether  she  knew  what  a  conspicuous  person  I  was. 
I  didn't  care.  I  didn't  want  her  to  speak  of  the 
specious  things,  but  I  did  want  to  know  whether  she 


160  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

took  the  trouble  to  place  me  anywhere.  In  these  two 
visits  I  went  up  to  a  top  balcony  where  Blake  lay 
all  day  in  fine  weather  watching  the  flooding  river  or 
the  bright  green  marsh.  He  was  pathetically  not 
himself,  glad  to  see  me,  yet  not  in  his  old  half -absent, 
funny  way,  as  if,  now  a  human  creature  had  come 
within  his  range,  he  wanted  to  do  the  expected  thing  for 
him.  But  at  the  last  visit  he  roused  himself  to  ask,  as  I 
was  leaving,  — 

"Look  here,  am  I  living  on  Mary?" 

"No,"  said  I,  "you're  not  living  on  anybody." 

He  frowned,  more  in  perplexity  than  distaste. 
These  things,  said  his  pinched  face,  were  too  much  for 
him  to  untangle.  Another  look  dawned  painfully  in 
his  eyes. 

"Not,"  he  said,  "not  on  her?  I'm  not  living  on 
Miss  Tracy?" 

That,  I  saw,  would  never  do.  I  answered  then,  and 
did  it  badly ;  but  it  served. 

"If  you  will  have  it,  Blake,  you're  my  guest  here. 
You  can  stand  that,  can't  you  ?" 

His  face  cleared.     He  thought  a  moment. 

"All  right,"  he  said,  "for  the  present." 

And  I  saw  what  a  wise  thing  it  was  that  I  had  lied, 
though  in  a  way  I  meant  to  make  good  by  turning  it 
into  fact.  It  had  roused  him.  He  was  indebted  to  me. 
He  would  live  to  pay  me.  I  realized  I  must  see  Miss 
Tracy  before  I  left  the  house,  and  I  found  her  in  a 
corner  of  her  river  balcony. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  161 

"You  must  let  me  pay  Blake's  board,"  I  said. 

She  looked  up  rather  surprised  at  the  brusqueness 
of  it,  and  I  told  her  how  I  had  taken  it  into  my  own 
hands,  and  she  must  bear  me  out. 

"Of  course/'  she  said,  at  once.  "The  bill  shall  be 
sent  to  you." 

I  knew  that  there  had  not  been  any  idea  of  bills. 
She  and  Mary  had  been  accomplishing  it  together  in 
then-  mother  way,  but  she  accepted  the  correction  as  of 
no  particular  moment,  though  right  if  I  thought  it  so. 
Then  she  smiled  at  me  in  her  sudden  irresistible  fashion 
and  I,  with  no  reason,  smiled  too.  You  had  to  when 
Ellen  Tracy  smiled.  Her  face  was  so  serious  —  not 
sombre  —  in  a  noble  way  that,  when  it  took  on  light 
and  color,  it  was  like  a  sad  landscape  under  the  sun, 
like  those  English  moors  where  a  glint  brings  out  the 
rose  of  heather  and  the  gold  of  gorse. 

"What  makes  you  laugh  when  you  look  at  me?" 
she  asked,  in  an  almost  boyish  fashion  of  direct  attack. 

"Do  I  ?"  was  my  stupid  answer.  I  could  have  told 
her  that  to  look  at  her  was  to  hear  the  singing  of  birds 
and  to  know  the  world  was  shouting  paean  to  the  spring. 
This  was  not  as  I  used  to  think  of  Mildred,  the  Spring 
herself,  a  delicate  creature  all  tender  hues,  come  walk- 
ing in  from  uncharted  coverts.  This  other  woman 
brought  the  spring  in  her  open  hands,  the  largess  of 
sun  and  shower,  to  give  it  freely.  But  all  I  could  say 
was:  — 

"  Do  I  ?    It's  very  rude  of  me." 


162  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"It's  the  way  you  look,  Ellen."  This  was  in  aunt 
Patten's  voice  from  the  other  end  of  the  veranda.  I 
had  forgotten  all  about  her.  "You're  always  smiling. 
People  have  to  smile  back." 

"Dear  me,"  said  Miss  Tracy,  in  an  honest  puzzle  as 
if  she  must  really  change  it  altogether.  "I  didn't 
know  I  smiled." 

Then  Mary  came  in,  and  Miss  Tracy  took  her  by 
the  hand,  as  if  in  some  sort  of  pledge,  and  said  to 
me:  — 

"I've  got  her.     She's  going  to  stay  with  me." 

Mary's  face,  a  pretty  pink,  and  rounder  than  I  had 
ever  seen  it,  grew  serious  and  sweet.  She  seemed  to 
want  to  impart  a  great  deal  of  incredible  well-being, 
but  could  only  manage :  — 

"I'm  Miss  Tracy's  secretary." 

"Not  drudging  any  more?"  I  hurled  at  her  de- 
lightedly. 

"Drudging  constantly,"  said  Miss  Tracy.  "Drudg- 
ing for  me.  Managing  my  business.  I'm  in  luck." 

I  gave  some  sort  of  hurrah,  and  they  were  pleased 
with  me  for  being  sympathetic.  And  yet  I  wondered, 
as  I  went  away,  how  it  would  be  about  Blake.  Would 
they  turn  him  out  of  his  Pilgrim  Chamber  whole  and 
sound,  and  would  Mary  then  wish  she  were  back  in 
some  stuffy  attic  where  the  conventions  would  not 
deny  her  ministering  to  him  ? 

That  night  in  going  back  I  bought  a  paper  and  saw 
first  of  all,  as  if  the  print  had  been  a  letter  to  me,  the 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  163 

death  of  Mary  Harpinger.  So  that  meant  my  not 
going  home,  but  driving  across  the  city  and  taking 
train  to  Romney. 

What  a  different  little  place  from  that  I  had  seen  when 
I  came  in  the  plenitude  of  youth  and  untouched  emo- 
tion to  find  Mildred  like  spring  walking.  Now  it  was 
late  summer,  parched  and  faded,  and  something  in  me, 
too,  had  faded.  I  could  account  for  that.  I  was 
married  and  grown  up.  The  Apple  Tree  had  its  old 
aspect  of  secluded  groups  on  the  veranda,  and  I,  con- 
scious that  every  newcomer  was  whispered  over,  made 
my  way  round  to  the  side  door,  and  there  I  met  Mil- 
dred in  her  hat  and  gloves,  and  the  carriage  was  coming 
from  the  barn.  She  was  pale,  there  were  shadows  under 
her  eyes,  and  I  felt,  with  a  sudden  compunction,  that 
I  should  have  been  with  her.  Some  of  this,  the  hard 
details,  I  surely  might  have  saved  her. 

"  Where  are  you  going  ?"  I  asked.  I  did  not  even 
kiss  her.  She  looked  too  wan  and  tired;  but  I  knew 
how  I  would  cherish  her. 

"Back  to  town,"  she  said,  and  then  I  saw  her  trunks 
were  coming  down  the  stairs.  "I  tried  to  telephone 
you." 

"I  was  away,"  I  explained,  and  then,  awkward  over 
Blake  and  Mary,  "out  of  town." 

When  we  were  in  the  carriage  I  asked  her  if  I  couldn't 
do  anything  by  coming  back  and  staying.  There 
must  be  things  to  do. 

"No,"  she  said  wearily.     "Mr.  Floyd  came  down." 


164  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

He  was  Miss  Harpinger's  man  of  business.  "He  did 
everything.  He  took  her  away  to-day." 

We  talked  no  more,  and  I  would  not  question  her 
because  I  saw  she  was  too  tired.  And  after  all,  what 
could  I  say  about  Mary  Harpinger  ?  My  every  spoken 
word  when  she  was  alive  had  been  an  offence  against 
her,  for  I  had  frankly  hated  her.  I  wished  now,  in 
the  humility  we  suffer  before  the  dead,  that  she  had  not 
to  go  so  long  a  journey  to  earn  my  softened  feeling,  and 
that  since  I  could  offer  it  in  an  unflawed  kindliness, 
I  might  do  something  to  help  her  poor  body  on  its  way. 
Such  warmth  of  heart  I  had  toward  Mildred  that  no 
service  seemed  too  arduous  to  buy  her  a  little  ease  from 
care,  nor  any  rite  too  insignificant  to  be  remembered. 
In  the  train  I  laid  my  hand  on  hers,  so  pitifully  small  for 
the  tasks  it  did.  But  the  hand  did  not  waken  to  return 
my  clasp.  It  was,  I  thought,  too  tired.  But  in  the 
carriage,  driving  home,  she  turned  to  me  almost  pas- 
sionately. 

"Martin,"  she  said,  and  her  voice  trembled.  With 
love,  I  knew,  and  my  heart  answered  :  love,  so  late,  love 
begged  for  in  every  beat  of  my  hungry  heart,  love  from 
the  wife  the  bride  had  never  waked  to  be.  I  looked  at 
her  in  the  ardent  expectation  she  used  to  find  weari- 
some, I  knew.  Now  she  showed  me  unashamed  a  face 
of  such  intensity  of  feeling  that  I  wondered  at  it.  "Do 
you  know  what  she  has  done?"  she  asked  me  in  that 
same  tone  of  passionate  energy. 

"Who,  Mildred?" 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  165 

"Miss  Harpinger.  She  has  left  me  every  cent  she 
had  in  the  world." 

I  seemed  suddenly  to;  have  grown  cold.  Tumultuous 
denials  rushed  to  my  lips,  but  never  crossed  them.  We 
did  .not  want  her  money.  Whatever  she  had  left  we 
would  not  have  it.  It  was  a  stigma,  money  with  no 
love,  no  kinship.  But  all  I  said  was:  - 

"How  do  you  know?" 

"She  told  me,"  said  Mildred.  "She  promised  me. 
If  I  would  see  her  through  she  would  leave  it  all  to  me. 
She  was  rich.  I  know  that  for  a  fact." 

I  felt  impelled  to  ask  questions  to  keep  her  from  see- 
ing how  far  my  mind  had  run  from  hers. 

"How  do  you  know  it  ?"  I  said. 

"Mr.  Floyd  told  me." 

"You  talked  it  over  with  him?" 

"Not  the  will.  No,  I  never  told  any  one  of  that. 
About  her  property  in  general.  It  is  more  than  three 
hundred  thousand." 

She  leaned  her  head  back  in  the  carriage  in  excess 
of  joy  and  weariness,  and  I  said  nothing  and  I  believe 
thought  nothing.  But  I  remember  how  the  city  street 
looked  to  me  as  we  drove  along  to  our  own  door.  The 
day  had  been  warm,  and  now  in  the  cool  of  dusk  every- 
body had  wandered  out.  A  caretaker  in  the  house  next 
ours  sat  on  the  steps,  her  dressing-sack  turned  away  from 
her  creased  throat,  a  palm  leaf  fan  in  her  plump  hand. 
Two  children  were  trailing  wearily  by,  from  an  after- 
noon in  the  Common,  the  elder  very  small  and  with  a 


166  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

world  of  motherly  responsibility  in  her  face,  the  younger 
numb  with  coming  sleep  yet  keeping  a  tight  clutch  on 
something  green,  no  more  than  grass  and  plantains, 
but  to  him  the  largess  of  the  summer  day.  I  felt  a 
yearning  throb  at  sight  of  them,  poor  little  unshielded 
bodies  getting  home  by  their  wits  through  the  traffic 
of  the  streets.  And  then  I  looked  upon  myself  with 
wonder,  at  the  unsuspected  cravings  of  fatherhood  in 
me.  Some  mechanical  instrument  was  banging  away 
at  a  distance,  and  to-day  I  cannot  hear  the  waltz  it 
travestied  so  lustily  without  the  same  quick  pang  it 
brought  me  then.  For  Mildred  said,  as  the  carriage 
stopped  and  her  voice  chimed  against  the  bars  of  the 
waltz :  — 

"At  least  three  hundred  thousand.  But  that's  very 
little  nowadays.  Almost  nothing. " 

XVIII 

WE  went,  in  all  decorum,  to  Mary  Harpinger's 
funeral.  It  was  a  sparse  assemblage.  She  had  no 
relatives,  and  nobody  was  yet  in  town,  so  Mildred 
told  me.  Floyd  was  there,  a  red,  tubby  man,  almost 
sooty  in  his  black.  I  wondered  if  Mildred  thought 
his  sartorial  woe  as  overdone  as  I;  but  she  greeted 
him  with  a  sympathetic  melancholy,  and  in  due  form 
we  who  did  not  love  Mary  Harpinger  consigned  her 
to  the  dust.  Then  we  waited  a  week,  two,  in  what  I 
could  but  think  differing  ferments  of  impatience, 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  167 

Mildred  half  in  triumph,  half  a  tremor  that  was  not 
really  fear,  and  I  resolutely  determining  not  to  cross 
that  bridge  until  we  came  to  it,  but  wondering  what 
I  should  actually  do  if  I  were  bombarded  by  this 
golden  shower  of  Mary  Harpinger's.  I  dreaded  the 
effect  on  Mildred  of  a  prolonged  watching.  She  grew 
wretchedly  uneasy,  and  schooled  herself  into  an 
alarming  rigidity  of  mind;  but  she  would  not  go  out 
of  town  again,  and  the  hot  days  told  on  her.  At  last 
it  came,  the  news  unheralded  by  any  personal  note, 
but  staring  out  boldly  from  the  evening  paper.  It 
was  Mildred  who  found  it  and,  with  a  shaking  hand, 
she  passed  the  sheet  to  me.  I  glanced  at  it  merely 
to  see  the  heading,  "Will  of  Mary  Harpinger,"  and 
then  I  threw  it  down  and  held  my  wife  to  my  heart : 
for  her  face  was  ghastly  and  she  was  trembling.  But 
it  needed  more  than  the  comforting  of  caresses  to 
minister  to  her.  I  got  her  to  a  couch  and  telephoned 
the  doctor,  and  that  night,  prematurely,  my  son  was 
born.  As  for  Mary  Harpinger's  will,  I  never  knew 
about  it  until  days  afterward,  when  Mildred  was 
doubtfully  said  to  be  out  of  danger.  I  did  not  forget 
it,  because  it  meant  infinitely  to  me  now  in  the  shock 
it  had  brought  her,  and  its  provisions  were  something 
I  might  have  to  cope  with.  I  need  not  have  feared. 
Mary  Harpinger  had  left  her  property,  without  one 
reservation,  to  her  business  man,  Joseph  N.  Floyd. 
Then  I  was  glad.  At  least  that  burden  of  ill-gotten 
money  was  rolled  away.  My  son,  who  was  puny 


168  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

from  his  untimely  summons  into  the  world,  would 
grow,  my  wife  would  get  back  the  strength  this  sordid 
bargain  had  drained  out  of  her. 

I  went  in  to  see  Mildred,  my  heart  on  my  lips, 
knowing  I  could  allow  myself  untrammelled  joy. 
Can  any  man  forget  what  pain,  what  terror,  what  de- 
light, rises  up  in  him  at  the  wan  beauty  of  the  mother 
of  his  child?  Yet  no  man,  even  if  he  has  learned  to 
weave  in  words,  can  tell.  It  is  one  of  the  incommuni- 
cable secrets,  the  giant  dread  that  she  might  not  have 
returned  from  the  gates  of  that  awful  wrestling,  the 
vowing  of  service  to  her,  of  the  brooding  tenderness 
due  to  this  white  majesty.  There  she  lay,  so  in- 
effably frail,  so  invincible  in  her  spiritual  empery,  so 
appealing  in  the  pathos  of  her  powers  undone.  Her 
long  braids  of  hair  were  on  her  shoulders,  her  delicate 
hands  were  crossed.  Even  now,  in  the  face  of  the 
good  cheer  of  my  summoning,  I  could  not  forbear  a 
poignant  wonder  lest  after  all  she  was  still  nearer 
death  than  life.  I  sat  down  by  her,  and  the  nurse 
went  away.  Mildred  opened  her  eyes  upon  me,  and 
at  once  I  saw  in  them  a  trouble  unfitting  the  mother's 
heavenly  calm.  Her  lips  formed  a  word.  I  bent  to 
listen,  and  she  said,  like  an  accusation :  — 
"She  promised.  That  woman  promised." 
I  was  concerned  at  the  effect  on  her.  Here  was 
she  at  her  weakest  still  brooding  on  what  assaulted 
her.  I  called  desperately  on  my  own  resources,  and 
I  believe  some  instinct  gave  me  the  right  clew.  Prac- 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  ,  169 

tical,  cool  common  sense  had  been  Mildred's  prime 
staff  and  friend.  I  had  savagely  deplored  it  in  her. 
It  had  been  the  inexorable  housewife  that  had  sent 
me  out  of  doors  of  the  house  of  life  when  I  would  fain 
have  gone  singing  through  its  halls,  and  strown  its 
beds  with  rose-leaves.  If  it  had  been  the  primal  im- 
pulse in  her  it  was  the  strongest  one,  and  that  I  would 
call  on  now.  I  bent  to  her. 

"Mildred,"  said  I,  " listen  to  me.  You've  been  very 
sick." 

Her  eyes  were  on  my  face  and  seemed  to  give  assent. 
She  could  bear  the  truth,  I  knew,  and  she  must  have 
it.  Only  the  truth  would  save  her. 

"You  are  very  sick  still.  You  have  got  to  stop 
thinking  about  what  frets  you.  You've  simply  got  to 
do  it.  When  you  get  well"  —  I  sought  about  for  com- 
fort crude  enough,  practical  enough  to  meet  her  defi- 
nite brooding  —  "we'll  make  money.  There  are  ways 
enough.  We'll  find  the  way." 

•'\  She  understood  me,  and  I  saw  compliance  in  her 
eyes.  She  would  dismiss  her  trouble.  She  had  the 
will  to  do  it.  And  so  she  would  get  well.  I  felt  with 
a  curious  pang  of  enlightenment  over  the  ways  of  life 
that  at  that  moment  she  was  more  at  one  with  me 
than  she  had  ever  been  —  indeed,  I  suspected,  through 
that  sudden  blaze  of  knowledge,  that  she  had  never 
before  been  at  one  with  me  at  all.  I  had  always  been 
trying  to  drag  her,  in  a  perhaps  cruel  ravishment,  to 
the  fields  of  my  romantic  passion,  and  now  I  had  at 


170  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

last  opened  the  gate  and  come  to  visit  her  where  she 
lived.  I  saw  myself  doing  it,  as  in  a  vision  of  an 
afternoon  call :  coming  to  see  her  in  her  house  of  life 
that  she  was  practically  seeking  to  make  a  more  pre- 
tentious one,  or  even,  to  do  her  justice,  to  set  on  a 
more  firm  foundation.  This,  I  saw,  was  probably 
marriage  as  it  exists:  a  defensive  alliance  for  prac- 
tical gain  in  a  condition  of  life  where  the  business  of 
man  is  to  live  in  conformity.  I  did  smile  a  little  at 
the  vanishing  of  visions  as  I  went  out,  warned  by  the 
coming  of  the  nurse.  I  had  gone  into  the  room,  my 
inner  self  an  ecstasy  of  poetry  and  love,  and  I  had 
left  with  a  promise  to  the  mother  of  my  child  that  we 
would  thrive.  Then  I  went  to  see  my  son;  this  was 
the  second  time  I  had  sought  him.  He  looked  very 
small  and  very  funny.  I  did  not  like  him  especially, 
which  was  a  shock.  I  had  cherished  the  feeling  that 
a  man  had  dormant  in  him  some  natural  affection  for 
his  offspring.  Nothing  of  the  sort.  This  little  creature 
was  not  only  uninviting  to  the  eye,  but  so  fragile  that 
it  would  be  a  brave  father  indeed  who  should  crave 
the  privilege  of  touching  him.  So  I  escaped  to  my 
study  from  these  imperfectly  comprehended  develop- 
ments of  the  marriage  state,  and,  still  with  that  ironic 
tendency  to  smiling  upon  me,  sat  down  to  earn  money. 
I  knew  perfectly  well  how  the  publishers  wanted  me 
to  do  it.  I  had  only  to  put  some  of  the  chaotic  ecstasies 
of  my  heart  when  I  saw  Mildred's  face  on  the  pillow 
into  the  heart  of  a  Paolo  or  Luigi,  and  write  a  story 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  171 

of  Little  Italy  for  the  paymasters  to  pronounce  it 
" corking"  and  urge  me  on  to  more.  So  I  took  my 
pen.  But  instead  of  the  story  of  Little  Italy,  I  went 
on  with  the  story  of  Ellen  Tracy.  That  was  the 
only  road  my  pen  would  take,  now  it  had  smelled  it 
out.  And  this  work  I  could  do  in  a  merry,  almost  a 
mischievous  mood.  It  brought  the  mood  with  it.  I 
took  liberties  with  the  remote  Miss  Tracy.  I  abducted 
her  from  the  pleasaunce  where  she  walked  in  maiden 
meditation,  and  made  her  fall  irresponsibly  in  love 
with  some  one.  Could  it  be  with  me?  That  was  a 
part  of  the  witch-work  of  it  all.  I  was  doing  this 
book  for  my  own  pleasure,  "for  fun,"  I  told  myself. 
Heaven  itself  knew  I  had  had  no  fun  thus  far  in  my 
halting  way,  prodded  on  by  necessity  to  do  faking 
tales,  and  with  only  my  one  poem,  the  Epithalamium, 
to  make  the  higher  type  of  man  in  my  own  guild  take 
off  his  hat  to  me.  But  that  poem  the  gods  had  given 
me,  and  I  didn't  dare  even  think  of  it  now;  I  didn't 
dare  recall  so  much  as  its  sacred  first  line,  so  did  I 
fear  the  soreness  of  the  memory  of  its  publishing. 
The  gods  had  given  it,  and  lived  I  ever  so  worthily  I 
could  not  believe  there  was  that  in  me  to  persuade 
them  to  accord  me  another  line  more.  For  there  is 
something  queer  and  inexorable  about  this  matter  of 
poetry.  The  gods  give  it,  or  they  do  not.  It  is 
absolutely  not  a  question  of  attainment.  Are  they 
wanton  in  their  choice?  Is  it  that,  on  some  brightest 
day  in  Olympus,  they  feel  light-minded,  play  jokes, 


172  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

and  rifle  Apollo's  scrip  and  toss  heavenly  measures 
down  to  earth  like  butterflies  or  shooting  stars,  letting 
them  hit  at  will?  Or  do  they  pine  with  momentary 
longing,  and  feel  fain  of  earthlings,  with  their  red, 
warm  hearts,  like  Diana  fain  of  her  shepherd  boy, 
and  stuff  a  lad's  wallet  full  of  words  and  measures, 
snatch  him  away  perhaps  to  the  mountain  of  song, 
drug  his  ears  with  melodies,  and  lull  his  earthly  sense, 
so  that  when  he  wakes  cold  on  the  barren  slopes  left 
by  their  heavenward  flight  he  recalls  dun  echoes  of 
what  he  clearly  heard  and  chants  it  haltingly,  yet  to 
the  ravishment  of  those  who  never  hear  the  clear 
initial  note?  Yes,  the  gods  give  it.  I  think  they 
give  it  wantonly. 

But  I  would  have  some  fun.  I  would  write  exactly 
as  I  felt  like  writing  about  this  warm,  goddess-hued 
creature  called  Ellen  Tracy,  and  she,  who  seemed  so 
free,  with  sovereignty  over  herself,  should  walk  the 
paths  I  laid  for  her.  She  was  too  free,  perhaps,  too 
glad  with  festival,  too  untouched  by  earthly  hungers. 
So,  as  I  let  her  walk  into  the  snare  of  life,  I  quite 
naturally  invited  her  to  walk  first  of  all  into  love. 
And  the  man  she  loved,  and  who  did  not  love  her  — 
was  it  I  ?  Why  not,  since  I  was  writing  for  fun  what 
only  I  should  read  ?  It  was  an  old-fashioned,  serious 
fellow.  Was  it  I?  No.  When  the  discovery  came 
to  me,  a  flood  of  memory  broke  also.  It  was  Egerton 
Sims.  I  do  not  mean  that  I  consciously  made  it 
Egerton  Sims.  With  the  honest  workman  this  never 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  173 

happens,  or,  if  it  does,  portraiture  is  a  botch  compared 
with  the  semblance  of  the  image  that  rises,  product 
of  a  hundred  sensations,  sum  of  fecund  years,  on  the 
palimpsest  of  the  brain.  But  when  I  saw  it  was  like 
him,  I  went  on  writing  with  a  warmth  I  had  not  felt 
for  long,  the  glow  of  greeting  a  friend  returned  after 
absence,  of  getting  into  touch  once  more  with  what 
has  brought  us  good  or  happiness  and  realizing  how 
alive  it  is.  Ellen  Tracy  loved  him  with  a  direct  im- 
pulse of  the  heart,  and  he,  for  reasons  lying  in  his  own 
humility,  never  knew  it,  would  not  know  it  indeed, 
but  died  poor  in  this  world's  acclaim.  The  only 
trouble  was,  I  was  afraid  of  making  him  the  shadow 
of  Colonel  Newcome.  Egerton  Sims  was  like  that 
Christian  gentleman,  and  the  portrait  once  done, 
nobody  can  do  more  than  paint  copies. 

For  a  long  time  I  held  to  this  in  an  ecstasy  of  haste, 
because  I  knew  well  it  was  my  pastime,  and  I  must 
speedily  set  about  redeeming  my  promise  to  Mildred 
and  making  money.  And  my  faith  in  her  strength 
and  control  was  fulfilled.  She  got  slowly  up  from 
her  bed,  and  taking  great  care  of  herself,  as  I  did  of 
her,  was  soon  as  well  as  ever.  The  baby,  too,  justified 
my  faith  in  his  powers :  for  he  ate  and  slept  and  threw 
off,  as  it  were  with  scorn,  all  imputations  of  being 
puny.  He  would  be,  the  doctor  said,  a  lusty  fellow. 
My  sun  of  domesticity  was  shining  brightly  now. 
Blake,  whom  I  had  not  had  time  to  see  of  late,  was 
improving,  Mary's  letters  told  me.  The  letters, 


174  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

though,  when  you  read  between  the  lines,  were  sad. 
I  made  a  mental  note  that  Mary  wanted  pulling  out 
of  a  hole,  and  I  must  see  to  it  the  minute  I  could  get 
to  her.  Why  hadn't  Ellen  Tracy  done  it,  she  who 
had  a  million  horse-power  for  pulling?  I  laughed 
out  here,  thinking  if  Ellen  Tracy  didn't  walk  Spanish, 
I'd  pay  her  out  for  it  in  my  novel,  the  novel  that 
was  getting  so  personal  now  that  there  was  no  hope 
or  danger  of  her  seeing  it.  And  while  I  sat  at  my 
table  wondering  if  I  really  could  grind  out  another 
story  of  Little  Italy  that  should  not  disgrace  me,  so 
painfully  alike  had  they  become,  the  maid  ran  up  to 
say  a  gentleman  was  downstairs.  He  had  asked  for 
Mrs.  Redfield,  but  she  was  driving,  and  so  he  asked 
for  me.  I  went  down  with  the  thought  of  Blake  in 
my  mind,  and  found  in  the  hall,  as  if  he  had  escaped 
from  the  larger  room  to  be  near  the  door,  a  small, 
set-looking  man  in  roughish  clothes,  walking  back 
and  forth  in  the  circumscribed  space  of  the  hall  and 
seeming  persistent.  That  was  the  way  he  struck  me 
at  the  first  glance,  as  a  man  who,  denied  at  the  door, 
would  have  said,  "You  won't  ask  me  in?  Well,  I'm 
coming  in.  You  don't  remember  me?  I'll  make 
you,  sir."  He  was  all  of  a  color,  clothes  and  all,  a 
sort  of  yellowy  brown  even  to  the  whites  of  his  eyes  — 
they  might  have  grown  jaundiced  from  a  warmer  sun  — 
and  smooth  black  hair.  He  was  not  an  ill-looking 
chap,  only  weather-worn,  frowning,  and  giving  me  at 
least  this  swift  impression  of  an  indomitable  per- 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  175 

sistency.  It  may  not  have  been  the  bulldog  quality. 
He  was  perhaps  not  ugly  enough  for  that.  It  might 
have  been  the  terrier  that  hangs  on. 

"My  name,"  he  said  at  once,  "is  Gorham,  Thomas 
Gorham."  Then,  as  that  probably  brought  no  answer- 
ing gleam  from  me,  he  added,  "Milly's  cousin." 

At  that,  an  illuminating  memory  bade  me  recall 
that  Mildred  had  once  been  engaged  to  him,  and  I 
said,  like  a  boor,  "Good  Lord!"  adding,  in  as  swift 
reparation  as  I  might,  "I'm  Redfield,  you  know. 
Come  in  here." 

"Pleased  to  meet  you,  sir,"  was  his  contribution  to 
my  cordiality,  and  I  continued  :- 

"Mildred  is  not  at  home.  She  will  be  presently. 
She's  out  with  the  child."  That's  a  facer,  I  thought, 
you  obstinate  chap.  Mildred  isn't  the  Mildred  she 
was  when  you  called  her  Milly.  She's  the  mother  of 
a  remarkable  person  I  respect  and  look  upon  with 
some  hope  of  a  near  intimacy  when  he  is  less  mollus- 
cous, whom  I  call  my  son. 

So  we  sat  down,  and  Gorham  told  me  he  had  just 
landed.  Come  home  to  stay,  he  thought.  Had 
enough  of  it.  You  got  tired  of  banging  round  the 
world.  Wanted  to  settle  down  when  you  were  thirty- 
five.  But  he  was  nervous  to  his  finger-tips.  That 
was  over  the  prospect  of  seeing  Mildred.  At  last  she 
came,  lovely,  a  little  languid  from  the  warmth,  and 
after  her  the  retinue,  the  nurse  and  my  son.  Gorham 
forgot  all  about  me  the  minute  he  heard  her  voice  in 


176  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

the  hall.     A  keen  anticipation  darted  into  his  face, 
and  he  got  up  and  met  her  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs. 

"Well/'  I  heard  him  say.  His  voice,  that  voice 
with  the  tense  fibre  in  it,  almost  the  twang  of  a  fight- 
ing quality,  was  greatly  moved.  "Well,  Milly,  I've 
come  back." 

XIX 

I  HAD  followed  him  with  an  instinct  of  courtesy  to 
them  both,  and  I  could  have  sworn  that  when  Mildred 
saw  him  she  was  afraid.  She  shrank  a  little,  and  I, 
after  that  one  look  at  her  face,  ranged  myself  beside 
her  and  touched  her  hand  remindingly.  If  she  had 
been  apprehensive,  she  pulled  herself  together,  and 
greeted  him  with  a  cousinly  frankness.  The  baby, 
whom,  from  a  fatuous  paternal  instinct  I  had  hoped 
to  bring  into  the  foreground,  went  upstairs  coma- 
tose in  the  arms  of  nurse,  a  state  evidently  considered 
most  admirable  by  nurse  herself,  though  I  thought  it 
hardly  picturesque  enough  to  impress  a  wandering 
cousin.  Then  Mildred  and  the  cousin  and  I  went 
into  the  drawing-room  again,  and  Mildred,  sitting 
down,  took  off  her  gloves  with  the  nicety  of  motion 
that  might  have  been  the  despair  of  women  less  equipped, 
and  turned  toward  him  with  a  pretty  solicitude  for 
news  of  his  voyage  and  his  present  destination.  As  I 
sat  by,  watching  her  absently,  I  thought  if  I  were 
called  away  from  her  and  had  to  conjure  up  pictures 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  177 

of  her,  for  my  consoling,  I  should  always  find  it  easiest 
to  summon  the  vision  of  Mildred  taking  off  her  gloves. 
Cousin  Thomas  dismissed  the  voyage  as  "well  enough," 
and  announced  his  intention  of  staying  for  the  present 
"right  here."  So  fixed  was  the  determination  of  his 
tone  that  I  could  well  believe  he  meant  to  spend  the 
remainder  of  his  life  in  that  very  room,  in  that  chair, 
indeed.  I  was  solid  enough,  dull  enough  in  my  sedate- 
ness,  heaven  knows ;  but  he  was  so  much  less  ductile 
that  he  inspired  me  with  a  light-hearted  and  flippant 
sympathy.  I  felt  almost  gamesome  before  him.  Here 
was  a  man  who  would  accomplish  his  aims  because  he 
would  never  cease  to  believe  that  they  were  weighty. 
And  after  all  it  would  not  be  from  any  intrinsic  ap- 
proval of  the  aims  themselves.  It  would  be  because 
he  had  decided  they  should  be  accomplished  for  the 
petty  triumph  of  "making  good."  Yet  one  thing  he 
had  not  brought  to  bear.  He  had  not  married  Mildred. 
I  wondered,  when  that  thought  came  to  me,  how  much 
the  defeat  meant  to  him. 

He  stayed  to  dinner,  and  I  tried  hard  to  get  up 
some  simulating  pretence  of  talk.  Indeed,  there  were 
things  he  knew  that  I  sorely  coveted.  He  had  seen 
strange  quarters  of  the  world,  and  I  wanted  to  rifle 
his  brains.  I  told  him  so  frankly. 

"It  would  be  money  in  my  pocket,"  I  said,  "if  I 
knew  some  of  the  things  you  do.  I  could  use  'em 
very  comfortably  in  my  business." 

Mildred  looked  up  with  her  alert  consideration  of 


178  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

the  practical  issue.  I  could  see  that  if  I  wanted  that 
stock  in  trade  she  meant  to  get  it  for  me.  We  were 
business  partners,  an  alliance  made,  I  knew,  against 
the  world. 

" You're  on  a  paper,  ain't  you?"  asked  cousin 
Thomas. 

"Not  now,"  I  told  him,  and  I  believe  I  said  it  with 
some  shame.  In  the  face  of  cousin  Thomas's  strides 
through  primeval  forests  in  search  of  cash,  it  seemed  a 
piffling  thing  indeed  to  write  stories  for  the  entertain- 
ing of  an  idle  public. 

"Travelled  much?"  he  continued. 

"Not  at  all,"  I  owned.  I  had  lived  hi  Trinidad. 
That  was  the  only  picture  I  had  to  contribute  to 
portfolio  views  of  foreign  parts.  He  woke  to  a  brief 
interest  in  me  then  when  he  asked  if  I  knew  anything 
about  the  shoe  trade  there,  and  dropped  me  as  not 
immediate  to  his  purposes  when  I  owned  that  the 
only  shoes  I  had  made  acquaintance  with  were  the 
pair  on  my  own  feet.  He  thereafter  devoted  his 
attention  in  a  perfectly  open  and  even  childlike  fashion 
to  Mildred.  And  indeed,  toughened  as  he  was,  seasoned 
by  all  kinds  of  commercial  and  adventurous  wind  and 
weather,  he  was,  in  the  intercourse  of  social  life,  as 
ingenuous  as  a  child.  His  interest  in  Mildred  was 
perfectly  undisguised.  He  asked  her  all  sorts  of 
questions,  brusque  questions  a  husband  might  have 
resented  from  another  sort  of  man,  but  that  from 
cousin  Thomas  seemed  distinctly  droll.  How  was  she 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  179 

fixed  ?  he  asked  her  as  if  the  question  of  her  fixity  in- 
cluded nobody  else,  certainly  not  a  chap  who  was  present 
and  might  have  been  held  responsible,  or  the  young 
lordling  upstairs.  Mildred  answered  gravely,  look- 
ing at  me  for  confirmation,  and  a  little  disconcerted,  I 
thought,  at  the  amusement  probably  evident  in  my 
face.  "  We're  quite  comfortable,"  she  said,  in  a  charm- 
ing compliance  with  his  way  of  putting  it.  "Of 
course  we  have  to  be  careful,  the  cost  of  living  is  so 
great." 

"You  on  a  salary?"  he  inquired,  turning  to  me. 
"Or  do  you  take  contracts?" 

This  was  too  much,  even  from  cousin  Thomas,  who 
meant  no  offence,  and  I  didn't  answer,  but  rose  and 
brought  some  tobacco :  for  now  dinner  was  over  and 
we  were  in  the  drawing-room  drinking  our  coffee.  I 
served  him,  with  a  superfluous  courtesy,  to  cover  my 
lack  of  response,  but  it  did  me  no  good.  For  when 
he  was  frowningly  puffing  away,  as  if  the  cigar  also 
were  an  enemy  he  meant  to  put  in  its  proper  place  by 
annihilating  it,  he  merely  looked  round  at  me  and  reit- 
erated :- 

"You  on  a  salary?" 

I  laughed  outright  and  capitulated. 

"No,"  I  said,  "I'm  not  on  a  salary." 

"What  do  you  invest  in?"  said  cousin  Thomas. 
"I  suppose  you  go  in  for  the  non-taxables." 

Now  I  did  feel  small,  because  I  invested  in  nothing 
save  my  life  insurance  and  daily  bread :  irritated,  too, 


180  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

for  how  was  cousin  Thomas  to  know  that  the  circum- 
stance of  having  taken  a  house  and  beginning  to  live 
like  other  men  fitted  to  such  houses,  kept  me  on  a  mad 
gallop,  hearing  at  all  hours,  and  even  sometimes 
through  my  dreams,  the  hissing  of  the  lash  that  drove 
me?  "Great  heaven,  cousin  Thomas,"  I  felt  I  might 
say,  if  I  were  as  frank  as  he,  "  don't  you  know  I  have 
to  buy  an  inconceivable  quantity  of  beeves  and  fish? 
Don't  you  know  the  innocent  chop  that  appeared  on 
your  plate  bought  in  its  finicky  collarette  of  fringed 
paper  was  Trenched'  and  incalculably  more  expensive 
than  the  chop  unpretendingly  hacked  from  the  loin 
and  indebted  to  no  tissue  paper  adorning,  nature's  own 
chop,  in  fact?  Do  you  know  the  cost  of  accommoda- 
tors  when  maids  fly  off  at  an  hysterical  tangent?  Do 
you  know  what  the  doctor  asks  for  training  a  puny 
child  into  a  potential  prize-fighter?"  But  these  were 
the  queries  and  confidences  I  reserved  for  my  pillow 
about  the  first  of  the  month  when  I  let  Mildred  open 
the  bills  because  I  actually  didn't  dare.  She  never 
knew  I  was  afraid.  At  least  I  assume  she  didn't.  At 
that  time  I  hoped  she  took  it  as  a  way  of  helping  me,  and 
leaving  my  mind  free  to  stroll  about  in  Little  Italy 
on  its  own  poetic  and  commercial  tours. 

When  cousin  Thomas  rose  to  go  —  and  it  was  not 
early  —  he  said  to  Mildred:  — 

"Til  be  round  some  time  to-morrow.  Take  you  for 
a  ride,  if  you  say  so." 

Mildred   hesitated.    I   thought   she  was   going   to 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  181 

yield  because  she  must ;  but  she  explained  in  a  moment 
that  she  always  took  the  baby  out  for  a  drive,  and  she 
was  not  quite  strong  yet,  and  stayed  hi  the  rest  of  the 
day. 

"All  right,"  said  cousin  Thomas.  "I'll  be  in  some 
time  in  the  forenoon." 

Then  he  went  away,  and  in  the  silence  between  us  — 
a  sleepy  silence  for  me,  since  I  had  found  cousin  Thomas 
less  and  less  exhilarating  as  the  evening  wore  —  I  could 
hear  his  quick  decisive  steps  echoing  down  the  street. 
Mildred  was  questioning  my  face.  I  felt  that,  though 
my  eyes  were  closed,  and  I  thought  she  wished,  hi  the 
manner  of  the  spouse  left  by  the  outer  world  in  marital 
seclusion,  that  brutal  confidence  of  the  wedded,  to 
know  how  cousin  Thomas  struck  me.  I  was  willing 
to  oblige  her,  but  he  seemed,  however  dynamic,  to 
mean  very  little  to  us  personally,  and  I  was  sleepy. 
Out  of  my  coma  I  spoke. 

"Is  cousin  Thomas  your  second  cousin  or  your 
third?" 

"Why,"  said  Mildred,  hesitating  over  it,  "he  must 
be  my  second  cousin." 

"Must  be?"  said  I,  really  thinking  of  the  heavenly 
surges  in  my  legs  and  wishing  the  bed  were  under  them. 
"You  know,  don't  you?" 

"We  were  almost  like  brother  and  sister,"  said 
Mildred.  "I  never  should  think  of  resenting  anything 
Tom  did  or  said." 

"Brother  and  sister?    I  thought  you  were  engaged." 


182  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

This  out  of  my  coma. 

"Did  I  tell  you  that?"  said  Mildred.  She  seemed 
annoyed.  "Well,  if  we  were,  he's  forgotten  all  about 
it  now,  and  so  have  I." 

"Don't  you  think  it,"  said  I.  "Cousin  Thomas 
never  forgets  anything  he  ever  decided  to  remember." 
She  turned  on  her  way  to  the  door,  and  regarded  me 
with  a  quick  look,  of  surprise,  I  thought,  at  my  clever- 
ness. I  was  winking  my  eyes  open  and  I  saw  the  look. 

"Martin,"  said  she,  "how  do  you  know  that? 
You've  only  seen  him  this  one  evening.  How  could 
you  possibly  know  it?" 

I  got  on  my  feet  and  shook  my  sleepy  mantle  off. 

"Why,  anybody  could  see  what  cousin  Thomas  is," 
I  said.  "  Besides,  it  isn't  one  evening.  It's  hours  and 
hours  and  years  he's  been  here.  But  you  were  a  brave 
girl,  Mildred,  to  break  your  engagement  to  him.  I 
should  as  soon  have  thought  of  getting  away  from  an 
octopus  fastened  neatly  and  securely  to  a  rock." 

Then  Mildred  gave  me  a  surprise  of  her  own  and  quite 
unwittingly. 

"No,"  she  said  thoughtfully,  "I  don't  believe  I  could 
have  broken  it  if  he'd  been  here." 

"You  don't?"  I  was  broad  awake  now  and  staring 
at  her.  "Why  don't  you  ?" 

"Why,  it's  just  what  you  said.  Tom  makes  up  his 
mind  to  get  a  thing  and  he  gets  it.  Or  he  makes  up  his 
mind  to  keep  it  and  he  keeps  it.  He  wouldn't  have 
let  me  go." 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  183 

"He  wouldn't?"  I  said,  in  a  sudden  heat,  and  yet 
ashamed  of  it  even  in  its  inception  :  for  who  was  cousin 
Thomas  to  stir  a  man's  blood?  But  I  added,  as  the 
man  for  whom  the  engagement  had  been  quashed, 
"Then  I'd  have  broken  his  head." 

At  that  moment,  before  Mildred  could  say,  as  she 
did  sometimes  wearily  when  I  let  any  sort  of  passion 
get  the  better  of  me,  "Don't  be  silly,  dear,"  the  tele- 
phone rang  and  I  answered  it,  perhaps  a  little  glad  to 
be  excused  from  my  posture  of  high  tragedy.  And  of 
all  surprising  things,  it  was  the  voice  of  Blake.  He  was 
at  the  Toasted  Cheese.  Would  I  come  over  ?  Blake, 
whom  I  saw  last  lolling  on  a  balcony  and  fed  with 
possets!  Of  course  I'd  come.  I  ran  up  to  tell  Mildred, 
who  was  now  in  her  room,  that  I  was  going  out  to  meet 
a  fellow ;  I  had  never  mentioned  Blake  to  her  since  she 
saw  him  in  our  house.  It  was  not  fear  that  constrained 
me;  it  was  not  resentment.  I  loved  Blake  and  I 
simply  couldn't.  I  had  my  shyness  of  emotions  that 
would  have  been  perhaps,  to  the  outer  eye,  mere  coward- 
ice. But  they  were  a  part  of  me  and  not  to  be  resisted 
lest  I  lose  with  them  some  softness  I  was  rather  glad  to 
have.  Mildred  stood  there  without  her  gown,  her  long, 
pale  hair  already  about  her  shoulders.  She  looked,  as 
I  went  in,  like  a  slim  girl,  and  my  heart  went  out  to  her 
as  a  man's  heart  always  must  to  what  is  moving  in  its 
gentleness.  But  as  I  approached  her,  I  saw  her  face 
was  not  like  a  girl's  at  all.  It  was  rigid,  haggard,  set. 
This  look  I  knew.  It  meant  something  definite,  some- 


184  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

thing  I  recognized.  She  was  planning,  planning,  and 
I  cursed  the  needs  of  common  life  that  they  should  force 
a  delicate  creature  to  spend  her  springtime  in  the  cal- 
culation of  the  store  for  summer  and  the  snow.  I  took 
up  a  tress  of  the  pale,  soft  hair  and  kissed  it,  and  Mil- 
dred seemed  to  waken  from  her  muse. 

"It's  stopped  coming  out,"  she  said. 

I  suddenly  felt  the  savage  in  me. 

"Mildred,"  I  said,  " Mildred,  why  don't  you  meet 
my  love  ?  When  I  kiss  your  hair,  for  God's  sake  - 
I  didn't  know  how  to  end  the  cry.  What  did  I  want 
her  to  do  ?  What  that  I  could  tell  her  ?  Only,  perhaps, 
to  see  that  at  that  moment  her  hah-  was  the  veil  of  her 
beauty,  the  waving,  living,  floating  cloud  about  it, 
symbol  of  it,  and  so  alive  that  to  touch  it  with  my  lips 
made  a  child  of  me.  She  looked  straight  into  my  eyes, 
not  fiercely  as  I  was  looking  at  her,  not  in  shrinking  as 
might  well  have  been,  but  as  if  she  wanted  to  under- 
stand me,  to  know  what  would  best  serve  between  us. 

"Should  you  like  me  better?"  she  asked. 

I  held  out  my  arms  to  her.  Like  her  better!  At 
that  moment,  in  her  cool  gentleness,  she  looked  unat- 
tainable, and  I  felt  the  impossibility  of  ever  telling  her 
how  beautiful  seemed  to  me  that  inner  citadel  of  her 
being,  which  I  had  never  seen.  It  must  be  the  heart  of 
love,  for  had  it  not  in  blossoming  made  her  outward 
beauty?  It  was  precious  to  be  so  defended.  But 
I  stretched  my  arms  to  her,  and  she  came  to  me  of  her 
own  will,  and  gave  three  kisses  to  my  lips,  such  as  the 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  185 

sun  gives  when  he  is  too  cruel  in  the  south.  This  from 
her,  who  had  never  come  to  my  arms  in  willing  haste, 
who  was  the  mother  of  my  child,  and  yet  whose  lips, 
I  had  known  too  well,  were  not  my  eager  subjects  but 
my  prey.  Then  she  seemed  to  slip  from  my  arms  and 
turned  from  me.  Yet  I  should  not  have  gone  to  Blake 
that  night  save  that  when  she  turned  she  went  to  her 
dressing-table  and  began  practically  brushing  her  hair. 
And  her  face,  as  the  glass  betrayed  it  to  me,  was  not  soft 
with  afterglow,  but  tired  and  old.  If  she  had  drawn  her 
hair  about  her  like  a  cloud,  even  if  she  had  not  looked 
at  me  again,  I  should  have  known  my  lady's  bower 
was  mine.  But  the  room  was  a  quiet  bedroom  hi  an 
autumn  night,  with  a  grave,  mysterious  lady  brushing 
her  hair,  and  scorn  got  hold  of  me  and  gave  rout  to  my 
passion,  telling  me  I  was  not  base  enough  to  sue  for 
favors  coldly  given.  But  outside  the  door  I  halted, 
and  after  brief  schooling  of  myself,  called  to  her:  — 

"When  you  were  engaged  to  him  —  "  I  stopped, 
and  she  said,  "Well?"  with  a  faint  curiosity  hi  her 
tone. 

"Did  you  accept  him  when  he  was  in  South  America 
or  when  he  was  here  ?" 

"In  South  America." 

"By  letter?" 

"Yes." 

Then  I  went  downstairs  and  out  of  the  house,  ashamed 
of  betraying  myself :  for  when  a  man  shows  his  primal 
jealousy  to  a  woman,  he  needs  to  be  comforted  by  her 


186  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

lips,  her  royal  favor,  to  keep  his  self-respect.  But  I 
was  glad.  Cousin  Thomas  had  not  kissed  her.  Cousin 
Thomas  was  well  enough,  but  to  see  him  and  his  dry 
way  was  not  to  fancy  him  even  in  the  outer  courts  of 
one's  liege  lady. 

When  I  got  to  the  Toasted  Cheese  I  found  things 
in  full  swing,  and  everybody  slightly  off  his  head :  for 
Blake  had  come  back  and  it  was  a  great  night  for  the 
club.  Blake  himself  was  at  a  corner  table  eating 
nothing,  no  mug  even  before  him,  and  Johnnie  McCann, 
opposite,  watched  him  with  the  eyes  of  a  liegeman  or 
an  adoring  dog.  Blake  was  changed,  as  he  could  not 
well  help  being,  after  his  total  downfall ;  but  he  looked 
a  different  man  from  the  supine  creature  Mary  and  I 
had  carried  off  to  Hopeful  Sands.  Pale,  though  not 
perhaps  so  thin,  for  the  recuperative  diet  of  Ellen 
Tracy's  house  had  been  directed  to  the  bettering  of  his 
nerves  by  padding  them,  he  yet  showed  a  shade  of  un- 
certainty in  his  movements,  a  pathetic  indirection 
which  was  not  like  the  old  Blake  at  all.  He  had 
experienced  that  most  disconcerting  blow  to  the 
man  regardless  of  his  body,  so  that  it  served  his 
soul :  a  knockout  before  the  prime  of  life.  A  delight- 
ful look  of  welcome  ran  over  his  face,  and  he  got  up 
and  struck  hands  with  me.  Johnnie  slipped  away,  and 
now  I  was  in  the  opposite  chair  studying  Blake's  face, 
my  own,  no  doubt,  boyishly  eager,  for  I  surely  loved 
him. 

"But  what  are  you  up  here  for,  old  chap?"   I  re- 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  187 

proached  him.  "How  do  you  dare?  You  were  to  be 
secluded  and  stuffed  for  six  months  or  more.  This  is 
dangerous." 

But  it  wasn't  dangerous,  his  shining  eyes  assured  me. 
They  were  the  eyes  of  one  to  whom  something  has 
happened :  revelation,  joyous,  inspiriting  change. 
What  secret  had  he  learned  at  Ellen  Tracy's,  what  note 
more  vivifying  even  than  the  Muse's  call  had  he  heard 
over  her  river  at  sunsets  and  at  dawn?  But  he  was 
putting  aside  my  question  very  practically. 

"I  couldn't  stay  there/'  he  said. 

I  thought  I  could  have  stayed  there  many  a  long  day 
if  I  had  been  Blake,  and  watched  Ellen  Tracy  and 
written  poetry.  He  hadn't  sacrificed  to  the  boiling 
of  the  pot  as  I  had.  Though  he  had  helped  glut  the 
Bally  Thief  he  had  done  it  absently  with  the  upper 
chambers  of  his  mind  always  open  to  the  winds  of  song. 
As  soon  as  he  got  a  heart-beat  stronger  from  Ellen 
Tracy's  wine  and  oil  and  the  beauty  of  her  river  balcony, 
he  should  have  begun  singing  about  her. 

"You're  not  up  here  for  good?"  I  questioned. 

"Yes." 

"  Doctor  say  so  ?     Let  you  come  ?" 

"Doctors  be  eternally  malpracticed  on  and  crammed 
with  their  own  specifics,"  he  retorted.  "You  don't 
suppose  I'm  going  to  talk  to  a  doctor  when  I  feel  like 
this?" 

"How  do  you  feel?" 

He  gave  a  low  laugh,  full  of  exultant  recognition  of 


188  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

the  things  that  are  to  be.  Nothing  but  the  future  has 
power  to  move  a  man  like  that. 

"  Young,"  he  said.  "  Simply  young.  Young  and 
full  of  the  devil  of  life." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  the  devil?"  I  asked  practi- 
cally. I  wondered  whether  it  was  an  ill  devil  he  meant 
that  whacks  us  on  to  inchoate  deeds  for  the  mere  lust  of 
life,  or  whether  he  was  flourishing  a  figure  of  speech. 

"I  mean,"  said  he,  "the  devil  that  keeps  this  present 
world  moving,  the  fire,  the  impulse,  the  surge  of  life.  I 
feel  young." 

He  might  feel  young,  but  he  was  not,  I  saw,  strong 
with  the  strength  of  life:  only  intoxicated  with  its 
ferment. 

"What  does  Mary  say?"  I  ventured. 

His  face  darkened,  not  angrily,  but  rather  with  a 
wistful  musing. 

"Mary  ?    I  haven't  seen  her." 

"Isn't  she  at  Hopeful  Sands?" 

"No.    But  then  I'm  not  either." 

"Mary  told  me  she  was  going  to  live  there.  Miss 
Tracy  told  me  so  and  Mary  acted  as  if  she  was  made." 

He  lowered  more  darkly. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "that  was  the  plan.  But  she  gave 
it  up.  She  came  back." 

"Back  here?" 

"Yes." 

"Before  you  did?" 

"No.    After." 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  189 

Then  I  understood.  True  to  her  worship,  Mary's 
allegiance  led  her  to  be  near  him. 

"No,"  said  he,  reading  my  assumption,  "that's  not 
the  reason.  I  wish  you'd  see  Mary,  persuade  her  to  go 
back." 

"Where's  Mary  living?" 

He  told  me :  a  house  a  few  doors  away  from  the  one 
aunt  Cely  had  kept  for  our  comfort,  and  where  she  now 
herself  lodged  in  proud  competency. 

"Yes,"  said  I,  "of  course  I'll  go  and  see  Mary.  I 
want  to  see  her." 

"Persuade  her  to  go  back,"  said  Blake,  frowning 
more  and  more  in  an  irritation  against  some  plight  he 
could  not  offer  me  in  its  entirety.  "It's  all  wrong,  all 
wrong." 

Then  he  fell  into  a  frowning  muse  and  woke  to  ask, 
with  a  quick  look  that  seemed  to  trap  me :  — 

"How  much  do  I  owe  you  for  my  board  down 
there?" 

I  stumbled,  but  honestly,  because  I  didn't  know,  and 
told  him  I  hadn't  got  the  bill. 

"It's  all  straight,  is  it  ?"  he  challenged  me.  "You're 
not  playing  it  on  me?" 

I  had  recovered  my  bravado  now,  and  assured  him 
it  was  straight.  Miss  Tracy  was  to  send  me  the  bill, 
and  she  hadn't  yet  done  it. 

"Very  well,  then,"  said  Blake;  "when  she  does,  hand 
it  over." 

What  had  he  to  bank  on,   beginning  with  scanty 


190  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

strength  after  his  downfall?  I  approached  that  hi 
haste,  because  this  seemed  the  easiest  way,  and  he 
cut  me  short  with  the  plain  fact:  - 

"I've  gone  back  to  the  Bally  Thief.  Wadham  has 
advanced  me  something." 

Well,  it  was  like  a  resurrection  to  see  him  there  talk- 
ing, in  his  right  mind,  and  so  the  others  felt  it.  They 
crowded  round  us  when  we  rose  to  go,  and  with  a  touch- 
ing gentleness,  as  if  he  must  not  spend  his  strength  on 
them,  shook  hands  with  Blake ;  and  though  their  faces 
shone  on  him,  they  seemed  to  know  no  other  way  to  tell 
him  what  a  great  old  boy  he  was  and  how  reverently 
regarded.  And  I  got  him  away  because  it  was  evident 
to  common  sense  that  he  ought  to  be  in  his  bed.  And 
I  walked  home  with  him  to  a  mean  street  far  from 
Mary's,  and  bade  him  good-night  at  the  door.  It  was 
an  obscure  looking  house  that  might  well  have  some  air 
from  the  gulf  of  railway  tracks  flanking  it,  though  it 
must  be  noisy  also,  and  that  I  hesitatingly  asked  him. 
Could  he  work  there,  I  said,  so  near  the  tracks  ? 

"  Well  enough,"  he  said  carelessly,  his  key  in  the  lock. 
"  Besides,  I  shall  be  at  the  libraries  grinding  for  the 
Thief.  Go  and  see  Mary  to-morrow,"  he  bade  me,  the 
previous  trouble  of  his  manner  returning  upon  him. 
"Coax  her  to  go  back.  Not  from  me.  From  you. 
Mary '11  hear  to  you." 

When  I  went  softly  upstairs  in  my  own  house,  I  found 
Mildred  asleep,  the  child  hi  his  cot  beside  her.  Her 
hands  were  clasped  on  the  coverlet,  yet  I  took  happiness 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  191 

in  thinking  that  if  there  were  alarum  in  the  quiet  room 
they  would  be  stretched  forth  invincibly  to  guard  the 
child.  I  kissed  the  hands  lightly,  once,  twice,  but  they 
did  not  stir.  She  was  far  away  from  me  in  sleep. 

XX 

THE  next  forenoon  I  went  to  see  Mary  at  a  dull  little 
house,  in  looks  the  twin  of  the  one  Blake  had  found,  and 
was  told  by  the  incrusted  slavey  that  she  was  at  work 
and  wouldn't  be  at  home  before  five.  So  at  five  I  went 
again,  and  found  Mary  on  the  steps,  the  old  look  of 
weariness  in  her  eyes,  the  day's  lending  from  the  com- 
mercial chase.  She  was  beautifully,  even  gratefully, 
glad  to  see  me.  I  should  have  said,  in  the  common 
phrase,  that  when  her  eyes  met  mine  she  looked  as  if 
she  hadn't  a  friend  in  the  world.  But  they  cleared 
in  the  recognition  that  here  was  one  at  least.  She 
turned  about  instantly,  and  said:  — 

" Couldn't  we  go  into  the  Common  and  sit  down?" 
I  must  have  looked  my  question,  for  Mary  added,  "I've 
nowhere  to  see  anybody  here."  And  then  I  realized 
that  the  freedom  and  ease  of  aunt  Cely's  realm  had 
only  been  preserved  because  it  really  had  been  the  reign 
of  a  responsible  aunt  Cely.  Mary  was  tired,  and  I 
noted  her  flagging  walk  and  set  about  wondering 
whether  I  should  take  her  away  at  all,  when  an  empty 
hansom  passed  us  and  I  hailed  it  and  bade  her  get  in. 
I  told  the  man  to  drive  to  the  Fenway  and  drive  slowly, 


192  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

and  Mary,  in  the  very  moment  of  saying,  "I  mustn't 
do  this,"  sank  back  in  the  seat  and  sighed  in  pure 
delight. 

"I  suppose  it's  the  fall  heat,"  she  said,  as  we  jogged 
away.  "Or  it's  my  vacation.  I  don't  believe  vaca- 
tions do  you  good,"  said  Mary,  laughing,  yet  angrily, 
as  if  she  felt  her  powers  undone.  "  They  just  under- 
mine you  and  keep  you  thinking  of  things :  how  the 
river  looks  and  how  the  salt  air  smells." 

"  What  are  you  here  for,  anyway  ?  "  I  asked,  roughly, 
to  make  her  speak.  But  her  frank  eyes  set  themselves 
on  the  distance  and  I  saw  the  tightening  of  her  mouth. 
"You'd  given  up  your  job,"  I  said. 

"Got  it  back,"  said  Mary. 

"They  were  glad  enough  to  have  you,  I  suppose." 
So  I  raged.  "They  won't  find  anybody  else  to  work 
over-time  and  then  take  letters  home." 

"No,"  said  Mary  simply,  "they  won't.  But  that," 
she  said,  with  her  air  of  candor,  "was  only  in  the  busy 
season." 

"I  thought  you  were  settled  with  Miss  Tracy.  Fixed 
for  life." 

"I  changed  my  mind,"  said  Mary,  and  again  her  lips 
made  themselves  firmer,  as  if  there  were  things  she 
knew  and  bade  them  not  to  tell. 

"Don't  you  like  her?"  I  asked  daringly,  and  again 
Mary  turned  to  me. 

"Oh,"  she  said,  her  face  flooded  with  quick  feeling, 
"I  do  love  her." 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  193 

"Then,  Mary,  what  in  thunder  are  you  acting  like 
this  for?" 

But  though  she  smiled  tenderly,  as  if  I  were  a  good 
chap  and  meant  well,  though  so  stupidly,  she  said 
nothing,  and  I  went  on  complaining. 

"Here  are  you  and  Blake  safely  tucked  into  paradise, 
and  he  appears  without  warning,  even  to  his  doctor, 
and  now  here  are  you." 

"Have  you  seen  him ? "  The  last  words  leaped  from 
her. 

"Yes,  saw  him  last  night." 

"What  did  he  tell  you?  No,  no.  Don't  say  it.  I 
mustn't  know." 

This  was  a  wail  so  anguished  that  I  said  as  gently 
as  I  could :  — 

"There's  nothing  you  couldn't  hear,  Mary.  You 
know  all  there  is  to  know." 

"Yes,"  said  she,  in  a  miserable  acquiescence,  "I 
know  all  there  is  to  know." 

"But  why,"  I  went  on,  changing  my  tack  but  con- 
tinuing my  persistent  chase  of  her,  "why  Blake  should 
look  made  over,  come  to  life  with  his  resurrection  face 
on,  why  you  should  look  like  a  soul  unjustly  consigned 
to  the  pit  —  " 

"Oh,"  said  Mary  sharply,  though  without  bitterness, 
"I  can  tell  you  why  he  looks  so.  He's  in  love  with  Ellen 
Tracy." 

I  did  not  move  a  muscle  nor  utter  a  word  of  the  shock 
it  brought  me.  Blake  in  love,  Blake  the  giant,  the  re- 


194  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

mote,  uncompanioned  creature,  the  poet!  I  am  glad 
to  remember  my  first  thought  was,  not  the  effect  it 
would  have  on  his  poetry  but  on  Mary. 

"But  you  mustn't  go  away,"  I  said.  "You  mustn't 
leave  her.  Not  yet." 

There  was  never  a  doubt  in  my  mind  that  Ellen 
Tracy  loved  Blake  as  swiftly  as  he  had  even  looked  at 
her.  It  all  shows  what  we  thought  of  Blake  hi  those 
days,  and  I  shall  be  the  richer  for  remembering.  I 
made  no  question  that  Ellen  Tracy  would  marry  him, 
but  I  hoped  Mary  would  stay  with  her  until  then. 
Now  that  I  had  seen  Mary  in  green  pastures  I  couldn't 
tolerate  the  thought  of  her  going  back  to  harness. 

"I  had  to  come,"  said  Mary,  hi  a  dull  assertion. 
"I  couldn't  stay." 

Was  it  because  the  sight  of  Ellen  Tracy's  beauty  was 
too  bitter  to  be  endured  ?  My  pottering  among  the 
emotions  in  my  journeys  in  Little  Italy  had  not  taught 
me  that.  Mary  would  have  died  to  buy  Blake's  happi- 
ness, this  I  fully  knew.  But  perhaps  she  was  not  strong 
enough  to  stay  there  and  see  the  blooming  of  the  flower 
when  her  need  of  tending  it  was  done. 

"I  wonder  — '  There  I  stopped.  I  had  no  busi- 
ness to  wonder  about  the  way  of  it  nor  what  road  it 
would  take.  I  ended  lamely.  "I  wonder  at  Blake's 
getting  on  his  feet  so  soon." 

"  It's  his  soul,"  said  Mary,  in  her  simple  seriousness, 
as  if  she  marvelled  that  I  didn't  know  a  thing  so  evi- 
dent. "Mr.  Blake's  body  doesn't  mean  much  to  him, 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  195 

anyway.  His  soul  is  all  —  alive."  That  last  word 
she  whispered,  as  if  in  awe  of  the  thing  Ellen  Tracy  had 
done  to  it. 

We  drove  for  a  long  time,  in  silence  now,  and  I  wished 
I  could  take  her  home  with  me  to  dinner.  I  believed  if 
Mildred  could  know  this  workaday  Mary  as  she  was, 
this  product  of  the  kind,  common  earth,  sweet  as  its 
blossoms  and  with  its  strong  pith  of  service,  she  would 
open  wide  our  doors,  and  see  how  blest  we  were  to  have 
her  there.  But  it  couldn't  be  thought  of.  Mary 
mustn't  be  hurt  by  rebuff.  So  we  stopped  at  her  door, 
and  I  told  her  I  was  coming  again  and  we'd  repeat 
the  drive.  We  were  hardworking  folk,  and  the  air  would 
do  us  good.  But  Mary  shook  her  head  and  I  knew  she 
meant  finality. 

"No,"  she  said,  "you're  a  dear,  but  don't  you  come." 

In  my  own  hall  I  found  a  note  from  Blake.  He 
would  be  at  the  office  of  the  Thief  until  eight.  Would 
I  telephone  him  there  and  tell  him  if  I'd  seen  Mary? 
I  telephoned  him  at  once.  Yes,  I  had  seen  Mary,  but 
she  didn't  propose  going  back. 

"She's  got  to  go  back,"  he  fumed,  at  his  end  of  the 
line.  "She  mustn't  lose  a  chance  like  that." 

"Well,"  said  I,  the  more  bluffly  that  I  felt,  if  Blake 
had  got  Ellen  Tracy,  he  had  the  world  and  the  moon  and 
seven  stars  and  could  stand  a  little  roughness  from  us 
here  below,  to  equalize  his  lot,  "you  make  her,  then.  I 
can't." 

"I  can't  make  her,"  he  growled,  "and  you  know  it." 


196  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"Very  well,  then,"  said  I,  the  more  daring  with  only 
the  impersonal  wire  between  us,  "make  Miss  Tracy  do 
it." 

There  was  silence,  and  I  almost  believed  he  had  cut 
me  off.  But  when  I  was  about  to  hang  up,  I  heard  him 
again,  his  voice,  even  with  the  travesty  of  the  alien 
medium,  palpably  moved. 

"You  don't  know  what  you're  talking  about." 

No,  I  didn't  really.  I  only  felt  at  that  moment  that 
if  Ellen  Tracy  loved  a  man,  it  would  be  a  heavenly 
assault,  a  vast  surprise,  to  make  her  yield  in  any  one 
small  way;  for  she  would  be  swift  in  yielding  because 
she  loved  him.  From  this  hot  speculation  I  escaped,  as 
having  no  right  to  entertain  it,  and  then  Blake's  voice 
came  again,  pleadingly :  — 

"Redfield,  you  go  down  and  see  her." 

"See  whom?" 

"Miss  Tracy." 

"What  for?" 

"Tell  her  about  Mary,  how  plucky  she  is,  how  she 
never 'd  say  die,  how  she'd  keep  on  typewriting  till  the 
day  of  doom  if  nobody  dragged  her  out  of  her  chair  and 
eased  things  up  for  her." 

"What's  the  use?"  I  bellowed,  so  that  Mildred, 
coming  down  the  stairs  in  white  for  dinner  inquired 
gently,  "Why  do  you  roar  so?" 

"Haven't  you  said  all  that  yourself?" 

"No." 

"Why  didn't  you?" 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  197 

"I  didn't  know  Mary  was  going  away." 

"Well,  say  it  now,  man.  You're  the  one.  Don't 
you  know  you  are  ?" 

I  could  almost  think  he  groaned  at  this,  but  he  threw 
back  angrily:  — 

"Will  you  go  or  won't  you?" 

"Yes,"  I  said,  also  on  the  verge  of  something  that 
seemed  like  anger.  "I  suppose  I  can." 

Why  was  I.  to  interfere  ?  Yet  he  and  Mary  were  so 
dear  to  me  with  the  exasperating  dearness  of  our  flesh 
and  blood  that  I  could  not  refuse  him.  Then  I  went 
in  to  dinner  and  begged  Mildred,  waiting  in  her  con- 
ventional state,  to  pardon  my  not  dressing.  She  was 
very  scrupulous  about  those  observances  and  I  liked  it 
in  her.  It  seemed  to  set  her  far  above  me,  the  height  I 
loved.  I  fancied  if  I  had  not  been  born  on  a  farm  and 
worn  overalls  the  year  round,  it  would  have  seemed 
more  important  to  me  to  sit  down  in  state. 

"Who  was  it?"  she  asked,  as  we  began  our  soup. 

"A  man  I  know,"  I  said,  despising  myself  because  I 
could  not  say  Blake.  "A  friend  of  his  has  lost  a  job. 
He  wants  me  to  interfere." 

"Cousin  Thomas  has  been  in,"  she  volunteered. 

"Yes.     He  said  he  was  coming." 

"He's  an  awfully  clever  business  man." 

"Yes.     I  assumed  so.     He  seems  to  be  retiring." 

"Don't  you  think,  if  you  talked  things  over  with  him, 
he  could  make  some  suggestions?" 

"Suggestions?"     I  stared  at  her.     Pale,  cool  sea- 


198  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

nymph  she  looked,  the  white  of  her  dress  set  off  by 
green  and  by  the  necklace  she  wore,  a  rivulet  of 
light  green  stones.  "What  about?  You  don't  think 
he's  gifted  in  proof-reading,  do  you?" 

"About  prices."  She  lifted  her  eyes  to  mine.  "You 
see  he  knows  how  to  deal  with  men.  I  suppose  it's 
a  knack,  like  any  trade.  You're  not  a  business  man. 
He  is.  Let  him  advise  you  how  to  talk  to  pub- 
lishers." 

I  had  finished  my  soup,  but  my  spoon  dropped  with 
an  unnecessary  clang.  I  was  frankly  amused  at  her. 
In  her  state  of  mother  bird,  seeking  about  for  provender 
for  her  young,  she  seemed  to  me  pathetically  dear. 
But  I  saw  cousin  Thomas  bearding  the  publisher  in 
his  den,  and  sitting  down  in  immutable  obstinacy 
until  he  had  gained  his  advance,  and  I  could  not  choose 
but  laugh. 

"I  don't  believe  we'll  set  on  cousin  Thomas  yet 
awhile,"  I  said.  "I  rather  think  he  knows  more  about 
shoes  than  manuscripts.  I  never  saw  that  chain 
before.  Where' ve  you  kept  it  hidden?" 

I  got  up  and  went  round  the  table,  ostensibly  to  see 
the  chain,  but  really  to  touch  her  hair  and  soften  the 
effect  of  my  laughing  at  cousin  Thomas.  For  after 
all  she  was  the  dear  mother  bird.  She  looked  up  at 
me  and  laid  her  hand  on  the  bell  to  summon  the  maid, 
but  kept  it  there  patiently  till  I  should  have  con- 
cluded this  tender  ebullition.  I  never  could  get  over 
the  horrified  amusement  I  had  at  Mildred's  looking 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  199 

so  poetical  and  yet  treating  the  garlanded  approaches 
to  romantic  feeling  with  such  amazing  sense. 

"He  gave  it  to  me,"  she  said. 

"He?" 

"Cousin  Tom." 

I  had  lifted  it  and  was  looking  at  the  stones,  letting 
the  green  glitter  run  through  my  hand,  when  the 
clasp  came  undone,  —  an  astounding  laxity  in  a  clasp 
selected  by  Thomas,  —  and  I  laid  the  thing  on  the 
table  in  a  shimmering  pool.  Then  I  said,  and  I  hardly 
knew  my  own  voice,  "Give  it  back  to  him." 

I  went  round  to  my  seat  and  she  rang  the  bell,  and 
the  maid  came  in  and  set  before  me  an  admirable  fish. 
After  we  were  both  served  and  the  maid  had  gone  — 
for  when  we  were  alone  the  farmer  boy  in  me  petitioned 
for  the  removal  of  that  alien  silent  spook,  —  Mildred 
said  with  perfect  practicality:  — 

"It's  not  very  valuable.  He  said  so.  He  remem- 
bered I  wore  green.  And  he's  my  cousin." 

True,  he  was.  I  felt  rather  an  ass  for  my  pains, 
and  made  my  penance.  I  got  up  again,  walked  round 
the  table,  clasped  the  chain  about  her  neck  and  kissed 
the  top  of  her  head.  But  I  wouldn't  apologize. 

"How  your  hair  shines,"  I  said.  "It  looks  like 
wimpling  brooks." 

"I'm  using  brilliantine,"  said  Mildred,  with  a 
serious  responsive  interest.  "I  rather  like  it  myself." 

And  I  laughed  out,  and  for  a  wonder  was  not  angry 
because  she  reduced  my  rapture  over  her  to  some- 


200  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

thing  in  a  vial  or  a  box.  But  her  mind  was  on  cousin 
Thomas,  though  now  she  hesitated  in  preferring  her 
idea. 

"I  told  him,"  she  said,  "the  baby  isn't  named." 

I  had  petitioned  that  our  son  should  be  named  for 
Egerton  Sims,  but  Mildred  had  asked  me  to  delay. 
Still  I  had  believed  that  it  was  to  be,  and  I  looked 
upon  it  as  a  grave  disappointment  if  I  had  to  be  denied. 

" Isn't  he  named,  the  little  chap?"  I  said,  trying 
to  take  it  lightly.  "I  had  an  idea  he  was." 

"If  you  are  going  to  name  a  child  after  a  person,  it 
ought  to  mean  something,"  she  reasoned. 

"But  that  would,"  I  told  her.  "It  would  mean  a 
lot.  To  me,  to  you  through  me.  You  know  what 
Egerton  Sims  stands  for  in  my  eyes." 

"Yes,"  she  objected,  "but  he's  dead.  And  it 
ought  to  mean  something  to  the  child  himself,  some- 
thing definite." 

I  looked  at  my  plate,  while  I  felt  the  blood  heating 
my  forehead.  I  couldn't  hear  the  rest  of  it.  If  she 
meant  to  tell  me  our  son  was  to  be  named  for  cousin 
Thomas  that  Thomas  might  endow  him,  I  frankly 
didn't  feel  able  to  hear  it.  I  didn't  feel  the  suffocat- 
ing prospect  of  anger:  only  a  great  distaste  that  such 
a  thing  could  be  and  a  certainty  that  it  could  never 
be  with  my  consent.  So  I  said  nothing;  but  that 
night  when  she  looked  her  fairest  standing  by  her 
child's  bed,  I  went  up  to  her  and  turned  her  to  face 
me.  I  had  saved  the  words  until  then  when  I  knew 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  201 

I  could  not  by  any  response  be  led  into  outer  harsh- 
ness. 

" Mildred,"  I  said,  "if  you  meant  you  wanted  to 
name  him  after  your  cousin,  I  can't  agree  to  it,  that's 
all.  If  you  don't  want  the  name  I  did,  I'll  meet  you 
on  another.  But  not  for  him." 

She  looked  very  reasonable  over  it,  and  kind. 

"After  all,  it  wouldn't  do/'  she  said.  "I  asked 
him,  and  he  said  he  didn't  want  it.  He  practically 
refused." 

"You  asked  him ?    When ? " 

"This  evening." 

"Where  was  I?" 

"Why,  upstairs  writing.  Tom  ran  in  a  minute. 
He's  all  by  himself  here  in  the  city.  He's  lonesome." 

"Well,  he's  a  decent  fellow  to  refuse,"  I  said,  "with 
an  idea  of  the  proper  thing.  But  why,  may  I  ask, 
why  wouldn't  he?" 

Mildred  drew  the  soft  blanket  an  inch  higher  over 
the  little  form. 

"He  doesn't  seem  to  care  about  the  baby,"  she 
owned.  "He  said  he  wasn't  interested  in  him." 

"Only  in  you." 

"Why,  yes,"  she  said,  "he's  always  been  interested 


in  me." 


I  was  going  off  to  my  study  for  an  hour's  work, 
but  I  stopped  outside  the  door  and  thought.  My 
mind  had  run  back,  in  the  capricious  way  minds  have, 
to  the  past,  and  brought  up  from  the  sea  of  thing  sub- 


202  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

merged,  a  tone,  a  word,  something  it  had,  perhaps,  un- 
known to  me,  been  searching  for. 

"Why,  Mildred,"  I  called,  "where's  the  colored 
person?" 

"What  colored  person?"  she  answered,  in  the 
absent  tone  of  her  who  hangs  her  cherished  skirt  up 
properly. 

"The  colored  person  cousin  Thomas  married." 

"Oh,  he  didn't  marry  her.  It  was  something  in  a 
letter  that  made  me  think  he  would." 

XXI 

THE  next  day  I  did  go  down  to  Hopeful  Sands.  It 
had  to  be  in  the  late  afternoon,  because  I  was  pos- 
sessed by  my  novel,  and  when  I  had  sat  down  to  it 
for  an  hour  at  nine  o'clock  I  found  the  time  ran  on  to 
twelve. 

I  was  tired  of  my  pen  and  the  race  of  my  fancy, 
and  the  long  sweep  of  sand  looked  beautiful  to  me 
and  the  air  off  the  marshes  quickened  me.  The 
causeway  lay  silent  under  the  pale  sunlight,  and  the 
island  itself  was  still.  It  looked  to  me,  fresh  from 
city  activities,  like  a  land  where  it  must  seem  "always 
afternoon,"  and  I  went  up  the  pathway  to  the  house 
treading  on  dead  leaves  and  fain  of  their  savor,  won- 
dering whether  I  might  go  on  and  on,  not  stopped  by 
inquiring  service,  to  the  river  balcony  itself  and  find 
Ellen  Tracy  at  the  end.  It  pleased  me,  this  fantasy 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  203 

of  a  sleeping  palace,  and  I  was  smiling  at  it  in  my 
thought,  when  suddenly  I  turned  with  that  prescience 
we  have  at  an  unheralded  presence,  and  saw  her.  It 
was  through  a  vista  between  evergreens;  there  on  a 
knoll  of  light  green  turf,  green  enough  for  spring,  she 
lay  in  an  abandon  of  nymph-like  grace,  supported  on 
her  elbows  and  silently  watching  me.  Somehow  in 
spite  of  the  supine  grace  of  her  body  that  might  have 
been  luxuriating  there  in  solitude  and  ease,  I  did  not 
get  the  idea  that  she  was  delighting  in  her  indolence. 
It  seemed  to  me  rather  the  pose  of  a  woman  who  had 
thrown  herself  down  hi  an  abandon  of  despair  or 
warmer  grief.  But  she  had  heard  me,  she  was  watch- 
ing me  as  a  wood  animal  watches,  and  she  did  not 
mean  to  be  discovered.  Nevertheless  with  an  im- 
pulse as  strong  as  the  counter  one  hi  her,  I  turned 
and  pressed  through  the  evergreens  in  impetuous  haste. 
But  before  I  reached  her  she  was  on  her  feet,  and  was 
standing  in  a  conventionally  welcoming  attitude,  hand 
outstretched  and  face  alight,  not,  I  was  amazed  to  see, 
with  the  expected  smile,  but  more.  It  was  ablaze  with 
welcome.  Yet  that  face  was  thinner  than  when  I  had 
seen  it  last.  There  were  fine  lines  of  pathos  under  the 
eyes,  and  the  eyes  themselves,  in  spite  of  what  looked 
to  be  their  tragic  joy,  bore  the  signs  of  a  tragic  grief. 
I  took  her  hand,  and  looking  into  her  eyes,  I  said,  in  a 
rough  inquiry: — 

"What's  the  matter?" 

I  declare  that  what  I  said  to  Ellen  Tracy  then  or 


204  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

for  many  a  day  after  was  out  of  my  power  to  say 
otherwise.  With  her  I  was  off  my  guard.  She  seemed 
so  different  from  all  created  things,  not  only  through 
her  own  nature,  but  the  profession  of  universal  kind- 
liness she  had  set  herself,  that  I  could  not  for  a  moment 
think  of  her  as  a  woman  to  be  safeguarded  from  the 
clearest  truth  from  man. 

"What  is  it?"  I  asked  again.  "What's  the 
matter  ?"  I  , 

A  faint  smile  touched  her  lips,  and  the  eyes  looked 
at  me  almost  gratefully,  I  thought,  and  with  the 
languor  of  pain  past. 

"Come  into  the  house,"  she  said.  "Aunt  Patten 
is  there." 

"I  don't  want  to  see  aunt  Patten,"  I  said,  remem- 
bering Mary  and  Blake  and  my  queer  errand.  "I 
want  you.  Isn't  that  a  seat  through  there?  Can't 
we  sit  down  and  talk?" 

She  had  flushed  delightfully  when  I  said  I  wanted 
her  alone,  and  new  life  seemed  to  flow  into  her.  I 
was  beginning  to  learn  what  marvellous  changes  were 
in  her,  and  how  enchanting  her  variability  could  be, 
like  the  sun  on  rosy  moors.  She  led  the  way  to  that 
other  covert  where  were  seats,  and  where  we  looked 
down  into  a  glade  of  mighty  loosestrife  and  hypericum, 
and  there  she  folded  her  hands  upon  her  knee  and 
waited.  I  could  see  that  she  was  not  unhappy  any 
longer,  and  for  me,  I  was  topfull  of  a  calm  content. 
But  I  thought  it  was  the  autumn  day  and  my  escape 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  205 

from  city  turmoils.  I  tried  to  speak,  and  found  I  was 
breaking  into  an  embarrassed  laugh. 

"I  don't  know,"  said  I,  "how  to  begin.  I've  come 
to  say  something,  but  I  am  afraid  I  shan't  manage  it, 
after  all." 

" Never  mind,"  she  returned,  in  the  softest  voice, 
and  I  thought  she  added,  "This  is  enough." 

But  as  that  didn't  pertain,  I  made  up  my  mind 
she  couldn't  have  said  it,  and  tried  again  to  break 
through  that  mood  of  hers  which  seemed  as  if  it  wouldn't 
help  me.  Indeed,  how  could  it,  since  she  didn't  know 
how  difficult  it  was,  the  thing  I  had  to  say  ?  I  plunged. 

"It's  about  Mary." 

I  thought  her  face  settled  into  a  less  vivid  expec- 
tation. 

"Yes,"  she  said  gravely,  "you've  seen  her?" 

"I  saw  her  and  talked  with  her,  and  she  told  me 
she's  not  to  be  with  you." 

"No,"  said  Miss  Tracy,  quietly.     "She  is  not." 

"But  we're  awfully  disappointed,"  I  urged  awk- 
wardly, "Blake  and  I." 

At  Blake's  name  her  face  waked  again,  ran  over  in 
a  vivid  flash  of  consciousness  if  nothing  more,  and  I 
went  on, — "You  see  we're  worried  about  Mary.  We 
worry  like  the  deuce.  She's  had  such  a  life  of  it. 
It's  gone  on  too  long.  It  simply  mustn't  go  on  much 
longer,  or  there  won't  be  any  Mary.  And  you  seemed 
such  a  special  providence.  We  can't  really  let  you 
off." 


206  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

She  was  smiling  at  me  very  kindly,  with  that  gentle, 
impersonal  look  she  had  had  for  us  all  at  first;  but 
she  shook  her  head. 

"I'm  afraid  it's  got  to  be,"  she  said.  "We  can't 
any  of  us  make  your  Mary  stay  against  her  will." 

"It  isn't  really  her  will,"  I  urged.  "She  adores 
you.  She  thinks  you're  the  best  thing  ever  made." 

"And  I  think  she's  the  best,"  said  Miss  Tracy. 
"But  as  things  are,  I  believe  she's  right.  She'll  stay 
away  from  me  for  a  time.  Maybe  then  she'll  come 
back.  Maybe  I  can  persuade  her.  But  not  now. 
It  wouldn't  do  the  least  good  to  try  it  now." 

I  dug  my  heel  into  the  ground  and  muttered  some- 
thing. It  seemed  to  amuse  her. 

"You're  not  used  to  being  refused,"  she  said,  in 
that  soft  voice. 

"It's  Mary  I'm  thinking  of,"  I  said,  "Mary  —  and 
Blake." 

Her  face  took  on  the  veil  of  soberness  that  was,  I 
could  swear,  the  pattern  of  the  sombre  face  that  had 
broken  into  welcome  at  my  coming.  She  answered 
gravely  and  with  a  candid  simplicity,  making  no  pre- 
tence at  subterfuge. 

"Yes.    Mr.  Blake.    That's  another  matter." 

How  great  a  matter  was  it  to  her,  I  wondered,  and 
hardly  dared  look  at  her.  I  was  irritated  with  my 
own  budget  of  fact  I  could  not  use.  Since  I  could 
not  confess  to  her  I  had  been  told  Blake  was  in  love 
with  her,  and  that  I  did  not  need  telling  to  know 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  207 

Mary  was  in  love  with  Blake,  what  was  the  use  of 
going  on  through  this  haze  of  indirections  I  believed 
she  hated  as  much  as  I? 

"Mary'll  come  out  safe  and  sound,"  she  said.  "So 
shaU  I." 

There  was  a  touch  of  bitterness  in  this,  and  what 
bitterness  there  was  for  such  a  lady  I  could  not  see. 
Ruth  there  might  be  for  those  who  loved  her  and  must 
be  denied  even  a  moment  of  her  fair  presence,  but 
not  bitterness. 

"We're  women,"  she  went  on.  "It's  our  birth- 
right. But  Mr.  Blake !  And  it  isn't  even  because 
he's  a  man  and  not  strong  —  it's  because  he's  a  poet." 

"Did  he  seem  to  you  strong  enough  to  go  back  to 
work  ?  "  I  asked,  taking  a  path  removed  from  subtleties. 

"No,  oh,  no.     He's  by  no  means  strong  enough." 

"Couldn't  you  persuade  him?"  I  asked  boldly. 

And  now  she  answered  with  some  rigidity  of  pur- 
pose, as  if  rather  reproaching  me  for  making  her  say  it. 

"He  had  to  go.  He  may  not  be  the  worse  for  it, 
after  all.  It's  better  to  be  a  man  than  a  poet." 

And  again  her  face  ran  over  with  that  sun  of  smiling 
candor.  It  had  an  appeal  in  it,  a  certainty  of  your 
answering.  "I'm  sure  you  agree  with  me,"  it  said. 
"I'm  so  grateful  for  it.  But  if  you  have  one  reserva- 
tion, sweep  it  away,  I  beg  of  you.  Do  agree  with 
me." 

I  was  out  of  conceit  with  my  errand  and  myself. 
I  was  a  little  jealous,  if  that  could  be,  that  she  should 


208  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

so  deify  the  mission  of  poets  and  have  nothing  to  say 
to  a  poor  prose  writer  who  was,  after  all,  doing  his 
best  to  boil  the  pot.  I  really  think  that  was  the  first 
time  I  had  ever  wanted  anybody  to  commend  my 
Little  Italy,  except  perhaps  some  publisher's  emissary 
who  might  advance  me  ten  per  cent  on  futures. 

"You  seem  to  think  mighty  well  of  poets,"  I  said. 

"They're  the  blood  royal,"  she  returned,  with  a 
bombast  I  liked.  It  started  my  pulses,  for  I  thought 
so,  too.  "The  rest  of  us  ought  to  be  taxed,  and  heavily, 
to  keep  them  in  green  valleys." 

"Spouting  all  the  time,"  I  jeered. 

"Fluting,  if  you  like.  Or  making  big  symphonies 
and  booming  away  at  us  with  the  noise  of  thunder 
and  water-spouts." 

It  was  foolish  talk,  but  I  liked  it. 

"Well,"  I  said,  and  I  said  it  earnestly,  for  I  felt  I 
had  a  right,  through  my  love  of  Blake,  to  those  pre- 
mature good  wishes  known  blatantly  as  congratula- 
tions, "you've  the  game  in  your  own  hands.  You 
can  keep  your  poet  in  his  green  valley.  You  can 
plant  lilies  there  —  and  when  he's  tired  of  fluting, 
you  can  put  on  a  white  gown  and  go  and  play  the 
Muse  to  him." 

She  was  looking  at  me  in  a  gently  reproving  way, 
as  if  I  were  treading  too  lightly  among  intimacies. 

"No,  Mr.  Redfield,"  she  said,  "I  can't.  You  know 
I  can't." 

And  I  saw  that  she  believed  Blake  had  been  talking 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  209 

to  me,  that  he  had  told  me  he  loved  her  and  told  me 
further  that  she  did  not  love  him.  It  startled  me 
out  of  self-command.  That  any  woman  should  not 
love  Blake,  the  mighty,  when  he  sued,  I  could  hardly 
believe.  That  this  woman,  all  fire  and  the  fantasy 
and  even  childishness  of  romance,  should  not  love 
him,  was  not  to  be  understood. 

" Don't  you  mean  to  marry  Blake?"  I  asked,  in  a 
rush  of  ill-regulated  feeling. 

"Why,  no,"  she  said,  adding  in  what  sounded  like 
a  wondering  reproach,  "You  know  I  don't." 

"By  God !"   I  said,  and  got  up  and  walked  about. 

The  words  were  a  mild  commonplace  compared 
with  my  feelings,  only  an  inadequate  reference  of  this 
amazing  circumstance  to  the  only  intelligence  that 
could  comprehend  it.  I  stopped  before  her  and  looked 
down  at  her  where  she  sat,  almost  meekly  feminine, 
with  no  implication  of  having  dominion  over  the 
hearts  of  men.  I  was  remembering  his  face  as  I  had 
seen  it  that  night  at  the  Toasted  Cheese,  the  vivid- 
ness and  triumph  of  it. 

"But  Blake  doesn't  know  it,"  I  said.  "He  thinks 
you  will." 

She  looked  pained  at  that,  but  she  did  laugh. 

"Oh,"  she  said,  in  what  seemed  a  tender  exaspera- 
tion, "what  a  child  you  are." 

But  she  was  not  repulsing  me  and  I  blundered  on 
insanely. 

"He's  another  man.    As  Mary  says,  he's  all  soul, 


210  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

and  his  body's  got  to  toe  the  mark.  And  you  say 
you  —  oh,  next  thing  you'll  be  telling  me  he  hasn't 
fallen  most  terribly  in  love  with  you.  I've  no  patience 
with  you  womenfolk." 

Her  eyes  were  dancing.  She  seemed  willing  to  for- 
get Blake. 

"Oh,  do  have  patience  with  us,"  she  mocked.  "  Do 
have  patience." 

"But  you  mustn't  be  hard  on  Blake,"  I  reminded 
her,  "you  merciless  womenfolk.  We  must  remember 
he's  a  poet." 

She  saddened  all  at  once. 

"That's  it,"  she  said,  "he  is  a  poet.  He  mustn't 
waste  himself  on  anything  that  does  him  no  good. 
Tell  him  so.  He'll  listen  to  you." 

"Oh,  no,"  I  countered,  "he  won't  listen  to  me. 
He'll  listen  to  you." 

And  here  she  sighed,  and  I  got  a  pretty  plain  idea 
that  Blake  had  thrown  his  love  at  her  like  a  great 
blinding  shower,  had  asked  no  answer,  and  gone  away 
to  his  task  to  come  back  again  and  put  his  man's 
question  to  her :  this  when  his  prospects  would  half 
warrant  it.  And  I  felt  like  a  great,  soft  boy  as  I  stood 
before  her,  pleading  for  my  friend  in  such  sentimental 
phrasing  as  I  had  thought  I  could  only  throw  half 
cynically  into  Little  Italy. 

"You've  got  to  love  him,"  I  said.  "You've  got 
to,  Ellen  Tracy." 

She  looked  up  at  me  with  I  know  not  what  in  her 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  211 

eyes,  not  reproach,  not  reminder,  not  confession;  but 
as  they  touched  the  answering  messenger  of  my  own 
for  a  second,  a  strange  thing  happened.  I  lost  count 
of  time  and  recognition  of  this  place.  I  forgot  Blake, 
forgot  my  most  dear  son  to  whom  I  meant  to  be  as 
honorable  an  example  as  Egerton  Sims  had  been  to 
me,  forgot  Mildred  with  the  brilliantine  on  her  hair, 
and  even  forgot  the  conscious  me  to  whom  I  daily 
referred  my  acts.  I  was  simply  in  a  large  place  — 
green  it  was,  with  the  boles  of  trees  thereabout  and 
the  sound  of  falling  water  —  and  Ellen  Tracy  was 
there,  and  all  the  wistfulness  had  gone  out  of  her 
face  and  given  room  to  a  sweet  placidity.  The  cur- 
rents of  life  ran  evenly,  and  we  desired  according 
things,  and  what  we  desired  the  earth  was  fain  to 
give  us.  That  must,  I  thought,  in  a  by-current  of 
my  mind,  have  been  like  the  days  in  Eden  bower. 
And  I  knew  with  a  deeper  thankfulness  than  I  could 
express,  that  the  old  life  of  harried  feeling  and  im- 
perfect effort  was  done  with,  and  that  this  was  hence- 
forth peace.  But  as  I  stood  there  in  that  equilibrium 
between  joy  and  pain,  I  heard  her  voice,  in  trouble, 
in  persistent  recall  to  some  other  state  she  did  not 
trust  herself  to  leave. 

"No,"  she  kept  saying,  "no,  no." 

Then  I  came  awake  —  though  indeed  I  had  seemed 
to  be  more  completely  awake  before  —  and  there  were 
the  trees  about  us,  though  not  the  trees  of  my  other 
vision,  and  the  garden  seats  and  the  flowers  below  us, 


212  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

and  there  was  she,  her  face  all  broken  by  a  strange 
illuminated  anguish  of  delight. 

"What  was  it? "  I  asked  her. 

I  think  I  whispered.     She  shook  her  head. 

"  Did  I "  —  but  I  had  to  know  —  "  did  I  touch  you  ? 
touch  your  hand?" 

She  broke  out  at  this  into  a  great  sob  of  something 
like  thankfulness. 

"No,"  she  said,  "no  !    Of  course  not.    No  !" 

I  tried  to  laugh  and  managed  it  badly. 

"I  must  have  got  too  much  sun,"  I  said.  "It  was 
pretty  hot  on  the  causeway." 

But  it  hadn't  been  hot,  and  she  knew  it  and  so  did 
I.  And  I  said  laughing :- 

"All  this  talk  about  poets !" 

But  something  in  me,  something  nobler,  more  in- 
domitable, more  real  than  all  these  sham  conventions, 
rose  in  me,  and  would  satisfy  itself. 

"Tell  me,"  said  I,  "do  you  feel  as  if  you  and  I  had 
met  before?" 

She  made  no  subterfuge. 

"Oh,  yes,"  she  said,  quite  simply. 

"And  known  each  other?" 

She  nodded  with  the  same  candor,  as  if  she  owed 
fealty  to  our  common  memory. 

"When  did  it  seem  so  first?" 

"When  you  came."  This  she  stated  without  emotion 
of  any  sort.  "When  you  came  with  them." 

"Did  you  feel  as  if  you  had  met  Blake  before  that 
day?" 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  213 

I  had  a  mad  desire  now  to  know.  But  curiously 
the  desire  was  its  own  defeat.  For  as  this  personal 
longing  dominated  me,  it  seemed  to  shatter  the  con- 
tent between  us,  and  to  terrify  her  in  some  way  and 
break  the  pure  lucidity  of  her  thought.  But  she 
answered  me. 

"No,"  she  said,  "I  had  not  seen  him." 

"Nor  any  one  in  that  strange  way,"  I  persisted, 
"any  one  but  me?" 

And  though  it  seemed  a  cruelty  that  tortured  her, 
she  answered  out  of  her  gentleness  :- 

"Not  any  one  but  you." 

A  madness  of  joy  had  possession  of  me.  She  and  I 
alone  had  actually  been  in  that  Eden  we  had  now 
summoned  about  us  with  an  unwitting  will.  But 
something,  the  same  look  of  the  place  we  stood  in 
now,  took  hold  on  me  like  a  reminding  touch,  and  I 
knew  I  must  leave  it  and  leave  her  before  I  tried  to 
drag  her  back  with  me  to  that  forbidden  heaven.  I 
believe  I  was  going  without  another  word,  but  some 
movement  of  hers  made  me  turn,  and  I  saw  her  again 
with  the  late  afternoon  light  lying  upon  her  through 
the  trees,  and  her  sweet  mouth  a-quiver.  And  mad 
as  the  thought  was,  I  could  believe  her  face,  her  half- 
expectant  pose,  was  an  innocently  passionate  question 
tome.  "Why  must  you  go?"  it  said.  At  least  that 
is  what  it  said  to  me.  And  because  I  could  not  touch 
her  hand  or  say  good-by  in  any  way  set  down  by  rule, 
and  yet  would  have  her  know  how  divinely  well  I 


214  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

wished  her,  I  found  myself  saying  what  I  had  never 
said  to  anybody  before,  and  heretofore  should  have 
been  inept  hi  saying:  "God  bless  you."  Then,  walk- 
ing as  fast  as  I  could,  I  went  away. 

XXII 

THE  next  day  this  did  not  seem  to  me  a  dream,  but 
an  exquisite  verity  that  made  the  sky  brighter  and 
the  earth's  response  to  transcendent  things  the  more 
assured.  I  walked  lightly,  and  I  found  myself  gay  at 
breakfast  time,  and  chaffed  Mildred  about  her  son 
and  his  certainty  of  being  brought  up  in  some  obscure 
sect  because  I  knew  she  advocated  the  religions  that 
left  us  well  placed.  But  looking  gravely  at  me,  she 
conjured  me  not  to  laugh  at  sacred  matters,  and  I 
asked  her  if  she  considered  the  Unitarians  she  affected 
as  serious  matters,  and  laughed  the  more.  It  all,  the 
whole  fluent  scheme,  looked  very  gay  to  me  that 
morning.  I  seemed  to  have  made  a  discovery  of 
more  things  hi  heaven  and  earth  than  I  had  dreamt 
of.  It  was  unnecessary  to  define  them.  I  suspected 
that  then:  very  preciousness  would  cause  them  to 
elude  definition,  and  that  if  I  looked  at  them  closely 
they  would  be  gone.  I  had  known  a  man  at  Trinidad 
who,  with  cataracts  beginning  on  his  eyes,  could,  by 
not  looking  directly  at  it,  still  get  the  sunset  glow.  I 
was  like  that  purblind  creature ;  if  I  turned  my  eyes 
another  way  the  glow  was  there.  I  didn't  like  to 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  215 

carry  out  the  simile.  Was  I  blind  from  some  growth 
of  custom  or  false  belief?  And  could  divine,  swift 
surgery  sometime  cut  the  veil  and  free  me?  Mean- 
time I  poured  myself  into  my  novel  and  the  glow  was 
there,  indirect  but  splendid,  illuminating  the  page. 
I  went  to  see  Mary  again,  and  found  her  much  like  her 
old  self.  She  had,  with  the  pitiful  patience  of  woman, 
settled  into  the  decreed  or  chosen  rut,  and  was  making 
the  best  and  smoothest  of  it. 

"Let  me  get  my  hat,"  she  said,  as  we  talked  un- 
thinking commonplaces  in  the  hall.  She  came  down 
in  her  outdoor  things,  and  we  walked  away  into  the 
Common.  Mary  had  had  time  to  put  aside  her  own 
coil  of  circumstance  and  think,  in  her  dear  way,  of 
me  because  I  was  a  friend. 

"I  don't  believe  I  ever  wrote  you  a  word  about  the 
baby,"  she  said.  "  Things  were  pretty  bad  just  at 
that  time  —  and  then,"  said  Mary,  in  a  burst  of  honest 
betrayal,  "I  didn't  know  how  to  do  it." 

"He's  a  nice  chap,"  said  I.  "Named  for  Egerton 
Sims." 

For  that  had  actually  come  to  pass,  and  I  had 
heard  Mildred  tell  a  well-placed  caller,  a  friend  of 
Mary  Harpinger,  that  Egerton  Sims  was  an  English- 
man of  rank  who  had  been  my  earliest  friend.  It 
made  me  wince  a  little ;  but  after  all,  in  a  way  it  was 
true,  and  I  had  got  into  the  habit  of  discounting 
Mildred's  pathetic  efforts  to  make  our  social  mantle 
as  warm  as  possible.  I  was  sure  she  had  merely  a 


216  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

pretty  way  of  presenting  facts,  right  end  forward. 
She  wasn't  all  the  time  hitting  you  in  the  face  with 
them,  but  offering  you  the  smooth  handle,  so  that 
the  fact  could  be  used  to  an  excellent  purpose.  I 
knew  what  Mary  meant  about  not  knowing  how  to 
hail  the  advent  of  my  son.  She  could  hardly  do  it, 
unconventional  as  we  all  were,  with  no  message  to  his 
mother;  and  his  mother,  in  that  moment  of  cool 
scrutiny  in  her  own  house,  had  driven  Mary  out  of  it 
in  every  sense. 

"Did  you  tell  Blake?"  I  asked,  with  a  father's 
insensate  pride. 

"No,"  said  Mary.  "I  don't  believe  I  did.  He  was 
too  sick.  He  didn't  notice  things.  Nor  Miss  Tracy.  I 
don't  tell  her  things,"  said  Mary,  in  a  burst  of  generous 
wonder  over  Ellen  Tracy,  "  personal  things.  She  never 
asks  questions.  She  makes  you  feel  they're  ill-bred." 

And  yet  she  had  run  a  race  of  question  and  answer 
with  me  about  Johnnie  McCann  and  the  entire  circle 
of  the  Toasted  Cheese.  It  seemed  then  as  if  she  had 
to  know.  Indeed  it  had  seemed  as  if  she  and  I  hadn't 
needed  to  put  up  any  fences  of  discretion  while  we 
talked.  We  had  to  talk. 

"Have  you  seen  Mr.  Blake?"  Mary  was  asking. 

"Once.    Have  you?" 

"Yes.  He's  taking  on  at  a  great  rate  about  my  not 
going  back."  Mary  sometimes  returned  with  a  quaint 
wholesomeness  to  the  speech  of  her  country  days. 
"He  looks  pretty  well." 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  217 

"He'll  overdo,  I  suppose,"  I  contributed. 

"Yes,"  said  Mary,  philosophically,  "but  that  won't 
hurt  him.  He's  got  hope  now.  It'll  carry  him 
through  everything  till  his  next  breakdown." 

Evidently  I  hadn't  the  breeding  of  Ellen  Tracy,  to 
the  end  of  suppressing  natural  curiosities. 

"Mary,"  said  I,  "is  he  going  to  get  her?" 

"No,"  said  Mary,  coolly,  "she  doesn't  care  anything 
about  him." 

Of  that  I  also  had  a  certainty,  a  certainty  as  calm  and 
even  sad,  because  I  couldn't  without  revolt  contem- 
plate anything  that  meant  suffering  for  Blake. 

"Do  you  know  that?"  I  asked  her. 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Mary. 

"Did  she  tell  you?" 

"Tell  me  ?    She  ?    Do  you  think  she  would  ? " 

No,  I  didn't  think  so,  but  I  liked  to  have  Mary  con- 
firm it.  It  gave  me  a  pride  I  had  never  felt  in  any  pos- 
session of  my  own  to  think  of  Ellen  Tracy's  pride,  that 
set  her  on  the  farthest  hills.  I  saw  her  there,  without 
the  coldness  of  the  hills  themselves,  but  throwing  on 
their  snow  a  rosy  dawn. 

"  She's  daft  over  his  poetry,"  I  persisted,  "  as  daft  as 
we  are." 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Mary,  rather  wearily.  "But  that 
isn't  being  daft  over  him.  He'd  give  all  his  poetry  just 
now  for  her  prizing  him  in  another  way  —  prizing  him 
because  he's  a  man." 

I  wondered  if  her  "just  now"  meant  that  she  ex- 


218  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

pected  the  pendulum  to  swing  back  and  the  poet  to 
forget  his  vast  desires.  Mary  was  very  wise,  with  a  sad, 
homely  wisdom,  and  I  felt  she  knew. 

"  You  needn't  put  me  in.  I'm  not  daft  over  poetry," 
said  Mary,  as  if  it  in  no  way  availed  her  to  get  more  than 
her  due.  "It's  only  because  he  cares  about  it." 

So  I  walked  home  with  her  through  the  November 
twilight,  a  pale  yellow  sky  showing  the  bare  trees  like 
"ruined  choirs,"  and  a  lambent  gleam  in  the  pond. 
And  as  it  usually  happened  now,  I  found  cousin  Thomas 
established  in  the  library,  sitting  upright,  his  head 
dropped  a  little,  his  hands  tormenting  a  pencil  —  for 
he  never  relaxed  in  any  sense  —  and  Mildred,  pale 
with  weariness,  yet  scrupulously  pleasing,  in  her  chair 
by  the  fire.  I  was  often  sorry  for  her  in  these  days  of 
besetment  by  cousin-  Thomas,  irritated,  too,  because 
I  felt  she  had  herself  to  thank  and  she  had  only  to  be  a 
little  less  ingratiating,  a  little  less  compliant,  to  send 
him  to  the  rightabout.  He  was  the  most  uncompro- 
mising of  guests.  He  would  come  at  ill-considered 
times,  perhaps  half  an  hour  before  luncheon  or  dinner, 
and  yet  would  never  sit  down  with  us.  Rather  he 
waited,  in  a  perfect  silence,  not,  I  was  persuaded,  open- 
ing book  or  magazine,  but  sitting  in  the  same  rigidity, 
perhaps  entranced  with  financial  dreams,  perhaps, 
though  that  I  hardly  like  to  consider,  occupied  with  the 
tragedy  of  his  disdained  heart.  Sometimes  the  invis- 
ible picture  of  him  there,  awaiting  the  return  of  Mildred 
to  engage  her  in  their  almost  wordless  intercourse,  was 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  219 

too  much  for  me.  My  food  choked  me,  and  I  let  the 
dishes  pass.  And  again  it  moved  me  to  a  nervous 
laughter  that  I  had  to  summon  words  to  cover.  But 
always  Mildred  behaved  perfectly,  if  she  was  bored 
never  confiding  the  anguish  of  it  to  me,  and  always 
treating  him  with  a  scrupulous  consideration.  To- 
night he  chose  his  accustomed  part  of  waiting  until 
she  had  dined ;  but  some  spirit  of  the  outer  world  was 
in  me,  some  infection  perhaps  of  Mary's  homespun 
delightfulness  or  the  nearer  memory  of  Ellen  Tracy, 
and  I  would  have  none  of  it.  I  urged  him,  even  bois- 
terously, to  the  table;  but  he  was  inflexible  in  the 
degree  that  I  was  exigent.  He  would  simply  "sit 
right  there,"  and  he  did,  until,  having  by  nervous  con- 
sent made  a  short  meal  of  it,  we  came  back  to  him.  I 
was  about  to  exchange  a  word  or  two,  according  to  my 
wont,  and  then  betake  myself  upstairs  to  write,  but 
he  detained  me.  Ignoring  my  humble  mention  of 
some  news  in  the  evening  paper  as  common  pabulum 
whereof  we  might  partake,  he  intimated  that  he  had 
something  to  present  to  me.  Would  I  sit  down?  So 
invited,  and  guessing  from  an  uneasy  consciousness  in 
Mildred's  look  that  she  knew  what  was  coming  and 
would  fain  get  it  over,  I  sat  down  at  my  own  hearthside 
and  offered  cousin  Thomas  a  cigar.  He  refused  it  briefly. 
I  had  gathered  that  the  comfortable  palliatives  of  life 
meant  very  little  to  him.  He  was  most  temperate  in 
the  matter  of  indulgences,  and  took  his  dinner  in  the 
middle  of  the  day  to  "get  it  over."  I  myself  was  not 


220  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

devoted  to  creature  pleasures.  Indeed,  if  I  had  been, 
my  memory  of  Egerton  Sims  would  have  made  me  a 
little  ashamed  of  it.  Yet  I  did  like  the  business  of 
satisfying  our  stomachs  to  be  accomplished  as  delicately 
as  possible.  Cousin  Thomas  looked  up  at  me,  and  I  felt 
guiltily  that  having  caught  me  contemplating  the  top 
of  his  shiny  black  head,  he  must  also  know  what  my 
attendant  thought  had  been :  the  wonder  how  that  head, 
with  its  direct,  accurate  processes,  felt  inside. 

"I've  been  speaking  to  Milly,"  he  began,  and  it 
annoyed  me  again  to  hear  a  creature  so  divinely  tall 
called  Milly.  "I've  been  telling  her  I  want  to  settle 
something  on  her." 

I  felt  most  horribly  embarrassed.  I  didn't  want  to 
assume  for  an  instant  that  I  could  think  he  meant  money, 
and  yet  I  knew  he  did.  We  were  in  for  it,  I  thought, 
troubled  refusals  on  Mildred's  part  and  mine,  warranted 
to  hurt  nobody's  feelings,  not  even  a  Thomas  home 
from  foreign  parts  with  a  good  heart  and  an  imperfect 
knowledge  of  things  as  they  are,  for  good  reason  or 
otherwise,  done.  I  bowed,  vaguely,  I  hoped,  implying 
that  the  next  step  was  his.  It  evidently  involved  ex- 
planation, persuasion  indeed,  if  that  proved  necessary. 
And  Mildred  began  to  fidget,  if  a  creature  divinely 
tall  may  do  so,  and  I  knew  she  wished,  like  me,  the 
moment  were  well  over.  So  I  tried  to  shorten  it  for 
her.  I  believe  I  proffered  some  personal  banality  to 
the  effect  that  he  was  very  kind,  which  seemed  to  en- 
courage him. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  221 

"Fm  pretty  well  fixed  myself,"  he  told  me,  as  he 
had  before,  "and  you're  not  likely  to  do  much  better 
than  you're  doing  now.  Do  you  think  you  are  ?" 

I  answered  with  a  becoming  humility,  because  I  was 
so  tickled  with  the  sheer  genuine  honesty  of  him,  that 
it  might  well  be  I  should  not. 

"I've  been  looking  into  your  branch  of  business," 
said  cousin  Thomas,  "and  it  appears  to  me  as  if  it  was 
one  where  you've  got  to  make  a  hit  at  the  start,  or  you 
don't  get  into  the  game." 

Here  Mildred,  in  a  belated  loyalty,  I  thought,  came 
in  saggingly  to  suggest  that  I  really  had  made  a  hit  at 
the  start.  There  were  my  stories  of  Little  Italy! 

"I  know  all  that,"  said  cousin  Thomas,  as  if  it  were 
an  argument  between  them,  whereof  my  part  was  to 
stand  modestly  aloof.  "But  how  much  does  it  amount 
to?  How  much  can  you  count  on?"  he  tendered  me, 
seeming  to  find  it  his  privilege  to  be  answered.  "How 
much?" 

"How  much  indeed!"  I  echoed,  in  an  exclamatory 
acquiescence ;  and  having  waited  for  a  definite  answer, 
he  went  on.  . 

"I  don't  know  whether  you're  insured." 

This  was  partially  interrogative,  and  I  tried  to  look 
mildly  interrogative  myself,  as  if  being  insured  were  a 
virtue  that  might  be  imputed  to  any  man,  but  for 
myself  I  didn't  know. 

"Let  that  be  as  it  will,"  he  concluded,  "Milly's  got 
to  be  safe  and  I'm  going  to  make  her  so.  I'm  going  to 


222  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

settle  something  on  her.  She  can't  touch  the  principal, 
and  you  can't  either.  But  she'll  be  sure  of  a  little  in- 
come —  three  thousand  a  year." 

Here  we  were  up  against  it,  and  I  was  the  one  to  speak, 
with  the  more  direct  approach  to  indignation  that  I  had 
to  do  it  because  it  looked  as  if  Mildred  were  party  to 
the  knowledge  of  what  he  was  going  to  say,  and  had, 
it  appeared,  from  his  good  faith,  accepted  it. 

"But,  my  dear  fellow,"  I  said,  '"on  what  ground 
could  you  do  it  ?  or  on  what  ground  could  it  be  accepted? 
It's  tremendously  generous,  but  on  what  ground  - 

He  looked  at  me  in  a  serious  consideration,  as  if 
wondering  if  I  really  didn't  see. 

"I  told  you,"  he  said.  "I'm  well  fixed.  I  want  to 
see  Milly  the  same.  That  ain't  all  I  mean  to  do  for  her. 
But  for  the  present  it's  all.  I  want  her  to  be  comfort- 
able and  I  want  her  to  be  safe." 

It  did  touch  me  to  the  soul,  the  confounded  good- 
will of  him,  the  pig-headed  determination  to  make  his 
money  serve  the  purpose  for  which  he  had  bred  it.  I 
hope  I  answered  gently,  and  certainly  I  did  with  more 
explicit  yielding  to  his  questions. 

"She  will  be  comfortable.  I  shall  see  to  that.  And 
if  I  die,  she  won't  be  left  stranded.  I  am  insured." 

He  nodded.  He  approved  of  me  a  trifle  more,  I  could 
see,  as  an  unpractical  fellow  who  had  yet  the  wit  to 
protect  his  own. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "that's  all  right.  So  much  the 
better  for  Milly.  And  I'll  settle  something  on  her,  and 
then  we'll  see." 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  223 

I  wasn't  at  cross  purposes  with  him  now,  because  he 
was  unconsciously  letting  me  look  more  and  more 
closely  into  the  processes  under  his  shiny  hair,  and 
I  knew  he  had  so  set  himself  to  one  desire,  to  get 
money  for  his  wife  Milly,  that  when  that  vision  was 
reft  away  from  him,  he  still  clung  with  deathless  tenac- 
ity to  the  fact  that  the  money  should  be  devoted  to 
Milly  though  she  was  not  his  wife.  I  have  never  been 
able  to  settle  to  my  own  satisfaction  whether  cousin 
Thomas  loved  Mildred  then,  though  love  is  such  a 
chameleon  creature  that  it  may  well  take  color  from 
the  mind  that  harbors  it.  Perhaps  he  had  for  her  no 
fervid  emotion,  no  romantic  dream ;  still  the  desire  to 
guard  and  foster  her  that  was  forming  his  primal  spring 
of  action  at  that  time  might  well  be  called  by  so  high 
a  name.  But  it  had  gone  far  enough,  and  I  had  to 
meet  him  bluffly. 

"It's  no  use,"  I  said.  "You're  an  awfully  good 
fellow,  and  I'm  no  end  obliged.  But  you  can't,  you 
know." 

Here  he  sounded  a  note  of  irritation,  though  all 
abroad  as  to  the  motive  of  it. 

"I  tell  you  I  can  do  it,"  he  said.     "I  can  do  it  easy." 

"But  I  can't,"  I  threw  back  at  him,  short  and  sharp, 
"I  can't  allow  it." 

Mildred  gave  a  little  pathetic  sound,  but  I  didn't 
look  at  her.  Our  eyes  were  meeting,  his  and  mine.  We 
were  the  fighting  males,  and  the  cause  of  our  measured 
glance  was  far  outside  the  field.  It  was  absurd,  and 


224  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

I  felt  foolish,  but  this  was  the  way  it  had  to  be  done. 
Cousin  Thomas  stared  at  me,  no  hostility  indeed  hi  his 
face,  but  pure  surprise. 

" You  don't  want  Milly  to  take  it,"  he  said.  "Why 
not?" 

"I  won't  let  her  take  it,"  I  amended.  "You're  a 
good  fellow,  but  that  won't  make  it  possible.  Such 
things  aren't  done.  Is  there  any  convention  under 
heaven  to  allow  a  man  to  settle  money  on  another  man's 
wife?" 

Cousin  Thomas  stared.  I  was  mad,  he  thought,  the 
mad  writer  of  foolish  tales.  And  his  next  words  con- 
fessed it  virtually. 

"I  don't  know  what  you're  talking  about,"  said  he. 
He  got  up,  staring  at  me  fixedly,  and  seemed  to  sum- 
mon all  his  forces  to  the  problem.  But  they  were 
insufficient.  "Well,"  said  he,  "I'll  go  and  get  some 
supper." 

And  though  I  followed  him  into  the  hall  and,  con- 
scious of  the  absurdity  of  it  with  a  man  who  had  refused 
to  dine,  begged  him  to  stay  and  have  something  served 
him  here,  he  shook  his  head  and  struggled  into  his  over- 
coat, like  all  his  clothes,  mysteriously  too  small.  And 
I  went  back  to  Mildred,  fancying  we  were  perhaps  to 
assume  an  according  view  and  regard  him  with  a 
whimsical  gratitude,  and  found  her  as  I  never  had 
before.  She  was  angry.  In  every  exigency  of  domestic 
upheaval  over  my  own  shortcomings,  she  had  been 
sweet  decorum  itself,  she  had  lived  inside  a  reserve  I 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  225 

admired  and  feared  to  break.  But  now  there  was  a 
tiny  scarlet  spot  on  each  cheek,  and  her  eyes  hurled 
at  me  a  shaft  that  hurt  in  striking.  If  I  had  had  to 
"name  it,  I  should  have  called  it  scorn. 

"  You  can  throw  away  money  if  you  like,"  said  she. 

And  as  I  did  not  know  her  look,  I  felt  I  did  not  know 
her  voice.  I  found  myself  speaking.  There  seemed  a 
necessity  to  cast  in  words  to  stem  the  flood  of  hers. 
What  I  said  was  foolish,  but  might  serve. 

"I  don't  throw  away  money,  dear." 

"The  question  is,"  she  went  on,  "whether  you've 
a  right  to  throw  it  away  when  it  belongs  to  me." 

"Belongs  to  you?" 

"Yes.  He  is  giving  it  to  me.  He  isn't  giving  it  to 
you.  It  belongs  to  me." 

"But  Mildred,"  I  said,  "you  belong  to  me." 

She  did  not  answer.  She  only  looked  at  me.  Fierce 
unspoken  denial  blazed  in  her  eyes.  I  had  never  seen 
anything  so  white,  so  passionless  as  her  lovely  face 
awaken  to  such  life.  This  extremity  of  anger  always 
looks  like  scorn.  The  heart  that  feels  it  withers  and 
grows  cold.  I  felt  myself  a  wretched  fellow  indeed  to 
have  earned  a  look  like  that.  Now  the  old  common- 
places we  jeer  at  because  they  are  the  flower  of  senti- 
ment have  the  truth  in  them,  after  all.  We  turn  away 
from  the  ranting  couple  on  the  stage  who  are  recon- 
ciled by  the  voice  of  a  child.  But  it's  the  truest  thing 
in  life.  Suddenly  I  thought  of  the  boy  up  there  in  his 
innocent  sleep.  We  couldn't  tear  and  rend  and  scorn 


226  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

each  other.  We  were  his,  if  not  each  other's.  That 
was  an  eternal  pact.  I  crossed  the  space  between  us 
and  took  Mildred  in  my  arms. 

"  Don't,  dear,"  I  said.     "  Don't  do  it.     The  boy- 
he'll  hear  us." 

That  was  a  silly  fiction,  but  I  believe  I  felt  the  soul 
of  him,  far  off  in  his  sleepy  heaven,  would  hear  the 
clamoring  souls  of  us.  She  suffered  me  to  hold  her  so, 
and  as  I  kissed  her  cheeek,  she  began  to  sob,  wildly, 
tempestuously.  I  had  never  seen  her  cry,  and  it 
brought  a  terror  to  me.  I  comforted  her,  and  she  en- 
dured my  comforting,  and  presently  left  me  to  go  to  her 
own  room.  I  thought  she  maybe  went  to  the  boy  to 
get  solace  from  his  sweetness,  and  though  I  longed  to 
follow  her  I  would  not,  because  it  was  through  me  her 
hurt  had  come.  But  when  at  midnight  I  went  to  her, 
she  was  asleep  in  pale  placidity. 

XXIII 

FROM  that  time  I  seemed  to  be  living  Blake's  life 
with  him,  because  I  read  the  inner  secret  of  it;  and 
I  knew  it  for  a  high  destiny  to  be  the  lover  of  Ellen 
Tracy.  Looking  at  him  through  the  glamor  that 
always  divided  him  from  me,  I  could  not  believe  Mary 
was  right  when  she  said  he  would  not  get  her.  Of 
course  he  would  get  her,  he  that  came  into  the  world 
endowed  with  privilege.  He  was  working  very  hard, 
not  at  poetry,  I  guessed,  but,  like  the  rest  of  us  who 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  227 

had  the  domestic  mouth  to  fill,  at  crude  tasks  for  money. 
One  day  I  met  him  by  chance,  and  thought  he  looked 
another  man,  stern,  dauntless,  with  the  fighting  grip 
about  the  mouth,  and  hope,  trembling  hope,  in  the  eyes, 
the  look  of  one  who  has  at  last  given  hostages  to  for- 
tune and  thenceforth  must  hang  on  the  will  of  heaven 
because  he  has  so  much  it  can  destroy.  He  stopped 
me  and  spoke  peremptorily. 

"You've  never  sent  me  that  bill." 

I  feigned  stupidity  and  forge tfulness.  If  he  meant 
his  board  bill  from  Ellen  Tracy,  I  hadn't  got  it. 

"Then  get  it,  man,"  he  ordered.  "Don't  you  see 
I  can't?" 

Of  course  I  saw  that.  His  heart  full  of  lilts  to  her 
perfection,  he  couldn't  ask  her  to  let  him  pay  for  what 
he  ate.  So  I  promised  to  attend  to  it,  and  he  left  me 
after  a  sudden  question  I  felt  horribly  like  an  assault 
on  inner  chambers  whereof  the  door  was  never  opened 
now. 

"Why  aren't  you  writing  poetry?" 

I  may  have  looked  sick  and  even  terrified,  for  he 
added,  in  a  kindly  afterthought,  "Perhaps  you,  are. 
Perhaps  you're  not  publishing.  That's  a  good  idea. 
Save  it  and  pour  it  out  pellmell  all  at  once  and  get  some 
better  judgment  on  it  than  this  mean  time.  It's  a  day 
of  little  things.  But  I  tell  you,  the  fellow  that  can  do 
your  Epithalamium  —  he's  got  the  seeds  of  immortal- 
ity inside  his  skull." 

My  Epithalamium!    That  was  the  moment  of  my 


228  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

life  I  never  meant  to  think  of  again,  for  it  led  me  a  way 
I  dared  not  go :  to  the  knowledge  that  my  wife  had  sold 
it  and  that  she  saw  no  reason  why  I  should  not  have 
rushed  with  it  to  the  publisher's  instead  of  timorously 
unrolling  it  before  her  eyes.  Certain  men,  the  best 
men  I  knew,  never  forgot  that  the  Epithalamium  was 
my  triumph;  but  to  me  it  was  sore  defeat.  And  I 
wrote  no  more  poetry  because  no  more  came,  and  I  was 
still  of  the  opinion  that  the  Muse  must  not  be  beckoned. 
She  might  not  even  be  hailed  when  she  came  wandering 
down  my  way,  the  dew  of  Parnassus  wet  on  her  un- 
bound hair.  Only  then  I  could  throw  myself  at  her 
feet  and  while  she  breathed  the  exhalation  of  my  wor- 
ship, devoutly  wonder  whether  one  of  her  wilding  leaves 
might  fall  on  me.  I  have  wondered  whether,  for  an 
old-fashioned  chap  like  me,  there  was  ever  one  so  steeped 
in  the  romance  and  worship  of  things.  Was  it  youth 
alone  ?  I  think  not,  for  I  was  getting  beyond  first  youth. 
And  early  and  late  I  wrought  on  my  novel,  until  "The 
End"  was  inscribed,  and  then  I  copied  it  in  mad  haste, 
changing  the  name  of  Ellen  Tracy  to  one  conformable 
to  the  market.  And  letters  came  from  Rees  and 
Dresser,  reminding,  even  censuring,  letters.  I  was 
sending  them  nothing.  They  begged  to  suggest  that 
the  output  of  the  year  was  surprisingly  below  that  of 
the  six  months  previous.  But  my  mishandled  brain 
had  not  lost  its  cunning,  and  because  I  could  always 
imitate  when  I  would  stoop  to  do  it  —  stoop  from  the 
eminence  I  thought  Egerton  Sims  had  bade  me  hold  — 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  229 

I  began  to  imitate  myself,  and  as  I  had  held  my  mood 
of  gay  acquiescence  in  life  ever  since  Ellen  Tracy  and 
I  had  seemed  together  to  open  the  door  into  lands 
unseen,  so  now  I  wrote  from  its  accession  of  a  strange 
power  and  did  better  work,  my  taskmasters  told  me, 
than  even  their  foresight  had  conceived.  But  I  knew 
it  was  not  sound  work.  It  was  at  last  made  after  a 
pattern,  and  though  I  had  myself  cut  the  pattern  in  the 
first  place,  I  could  feel  no  heart  in  such  a  deed.  I  had 
need  to  make  good  in  the  market-place,  for  cousin 
Thomas,  with  his  freely  offered  affluence,  was  always 
rousing  in  me  a  counter  irritation  that  needed  for  its 
assuaging  the  making  of  more  money.  I  was  heartily 
sorry  for  Mildred,  brought  up  hard  against  my  old- 
fashioned  prejudices,  which  might  not,  I  was  per- 
fectly willing  to  believe,  fit  modern  shades  of  conduct. 
She  wanted  cousin  Thomas's  money,  and  he  was  craving 
to  endow  her  with  about  all  she  could  in  decency  sail 
under.  I  often,  with  that  ironic  habit  my  mind  had, 
saw  her  sitting  in  a  shower  of  checks,  always  lovely, 
always  irreproachably  gentle  and  right,  and  the  checks 
all  bore  the  name  of  cousin  Tom. 

One  day  on  my  own  doorstep,  when  a  flurry  of  snow 
seemed  to  offer  us  all  the  pretext  for  the  conversation 
we  needed  to  show  our  good-will,  he  stared  me  earnestly 
in  the  face  and  said :  — 

"Look  here,  I  want  to  give  Milly  a  car." 
I  thought  it  more  comfortable  to  steer  clear  of  heroics 
this  time  and  take  him  on  solid  ground. 


230  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"Oh,  we  can't  set  up  a  car,"  I  said.  " We're  in  no 
position.  It  isn't  the  initial  cost,  you  know.  It's 
everything." 

"Sure,"  said  cousin  Thomas.  "But  it's  everything 
I  mean,  chauffeur,  repairs,  chauffeur's  board.  Oh, 
I  wouldn't  give  it  to  her  without  the  fixings." 

I  looked  at  him,  and  he  met  my  eyes  in  a  transparent 
innocency.  He  was  unconscious  of  having  proposed 
anything  to  earn  him  chiding  or  even  gratitude.  I  was 
understanding  more  and  more  indubitably  every  day 
that  when  he  had  selected  Mildred  as  the  presiding 
goddess  of  his  life,  he  had  done  it  for  all  time.  I  have 
never  known  anything  more  unswerving  than  the 
allegiance  of  cousin  Thomas.  And  yet  I  still  had  not 
determined  whether  he  had  for  Mildred  a  survival  of 
that  fire  he  had  named  love,  or  whether  his  peculiar 
nature  called  upon  him  to  make  good  emotionally,  as  he 
had  in  the  ways  of  trade. 

"See  here,"  said  I,  "you  don't  know  how  I  hate  to 
wet  blanket  all  your  little  plans.  But  I  can't  let  you 
give  my  wife  a  car.  I  can't  do  it  myself,  and  I  can't 
let  you." 

But  looking  at  me  from  his  irrefragable  innocence, 
cousin  Thomas  inquired,  with  the  air  of  a  pioneer 
obligingly  finding  another  way  round :  — 

"Should  you  rather  it  would  be  a  carriage  and  a 
man?" 

I  lifted  up  my  voice  and  laughed,  and  the  snowy 
street  might  well  have  echoed  to  the  sound  of  it. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  231 

"No,"  I  said.  "No,  you  muttonhead,  you  blooming 
idiot,  neither  horses  nor  oxen  nor  asses  nor  anything 
money  can  buy.  You  can  say  to  yourself  I  'm  a  maniac 
if  you  like.  I  am  a  queer  fellow.  But  that's  the  way 
I  am.  Keep  your  money.  Fall  in  love  with  a  nice 
girl  and  marry  her  and  spend  your  pelf  on  her.  We 
don't  want  it." 

And  as  he  plodded,  grave,  yet  no  less  persistent,  down 
the  snowy  street,  I  went  in  and  divested  myself  of  as 
much  sleet  as  possible  so  that  I  might  run  up  without 
delay  to  exchange  idiotic  and  eccentric  words  with  my 
son.  For  I  adored  my  son.  I  even  talked  some  bas- 
tard language  to  him,  because  plain  English  was  in- 
sufficient for  our  needs,  and  the  nurse,  having  seen  like 
aberration  in  minds  o'erthrown,  suffered  me.  But 
to-day  Mildred  detained  me,  with  a  warmth  of  greet- 
ing foreign,  I  knew,  to  her  equable  nature,  and  so, 
though  I  should  once  have  hailed  it  fervidly,  not  quite 
welcome  to  me.  I  did  not  understand  my  wife,  and  I 
had  grown  to  believe  in  the  truism  that  nobody  under- 
stands even  the  creature  that  lives  nearest  him.  At 
first  it  had  hurt  me  horribly.  I  regarded  my  island  of 
exile  as  a  place  of  lonely  doom.  But  I  had  acquiesced. 
If  it  was  so  for  other  men,  why  was  it  not  inevitably 
so  for  me  ?  But  I  had  great  need  of  tenderness  from 
the  woman  who  had  given  herself  to  me,  and  some- 
times want  of  whirling  winds  of  a  supreme  avowal  that 
tells  us  we  are  kin  to  another  beating  heart.  Yet  now 
when  she  offered  me  warm  lips  I  almost,  save  for 


232  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

shame  lest  I  bring  upon  her  the  pang  of  love  misprized, 
turned  aside  because,  beat  down  the  suspicion  as  I 
might,  it  lifted  up  its  head  and  told  me  she  was  earning 
something.  Was  it  her  car,  a  thing  of  mechanical 
contrivance  made  by  man  to  melt  the  wax  on  many  a 
winged  Icarus  —  was  it  for  that  she  offered  me  her  lips  ? 
But  she  asked  me  no  questions,  and  I  wondered  whether 
she  and  cousin  Thomas  had  been  talking  car. 

And  then  in  a  day  or  two  the  impartial  trend  of  cir- 
cumstance seemed  to  offer  cousin  Thomas  overwhelm- 
ing argument  for  his  benevolence.  There  was  a  cab- 
man's strike,  and  Mildred  and  I  had  to  set  forth  on 
foot  and  in  the  snow  to  a  dinner  she  had  pronounced 
upon  as  most  important  for  me.  She  was  holding  up 
her  train  with  difficulty  under  her  cloak,  and  being 
very  sweet  and  kind  to  me  who  had  kept  her  from  speed- 
ing behind  her  own  chauffeur,  and  I  was  paying  banal 
compliments  and  venturing  poor  jokes  in  the  fatuous 
trickery  of  the  husband  who  must  conciliate,  when,  half- 
way upon  our  snowy  road,  we  met  Ellen  Tracy.  It 
struck  me  like  a  blow,  the  surprise  of  it,  the  incongruity 
of  Ellen  Tracy  in  city  streets.  Yet  the  raiment  inci- 
dent to  them  most  beautifully  became  her,  for  she  too 
was  in  fine  lendings  with  chinchilla  fur,  and  her  head, 
nobly  borne,  was  bare  of  all  save  that  invisible  crown  it 
always  wore.  We  came  upon  each  other  suddenly  in  the 
clear  twilight  and  it  was,  for  the  joy  it  gave  me,  as  if, 
within  the  obscuring  mists  of  outer  paradise,  I  had 
chanced  upon  a  face  beloved  and  lost.  And  her  face, 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  233 

too  thin,  too  grave,  I  thought  in  that  first  instant, 
flushed  into  the  radiancy  which  is  comparable  to  nothing 
but  hope.  And  I  had  her  hand  in  mine,  as  she  let  her 
skirt  fall  with  a  little  swish  of  silk,  and  then  I  had 
named  my  wife,  and  the  light  went  out  of  Ellen  Tracy's 
face,  and  it  challenged  me  with  what  .1  thought  one 
swift  glance  of  wonder,  a  white  surprise  as  if  some 
creature  lurking  unsuspected  near  had  her  at  last 
irrevocably,  and  she  begged  of  me  to  help.  But  the 
glance  was  as  swift  as  the  passing  of  a  star,  and  then 
she  was  herself,  my  gracious  lady,  exchanging  polished 
commonplaces  with  Mildred,  who  was  almost  agitated, 
in  some  inexplicable  fashion,  by  the  significance  of  the 
meeting.  Mildred  was  urging  her  to  come  to  see  us, 
and  naming  her  day  at  home,  and  Ellen  Tracy  was 
wafting  her  back  the  pretty  graceful  commonplaces 
required.  Instantly  I  had  an  overwhelming  desire  to 
see  her  in  my  house  and  oh,  wonder !  to  invite  her  eyes 
to  rest  on  that  small  young  prince  of  hope  within  it. 

"Come,"  I  found  myself  saying.  "You  must.  I 
want  you  to  see  my  son." 

She  looked  at  me  gravely  and  smiled,  a  fine  mysteri- 
ous sort  of  smile,  and  answered  gently:  — 

"Yes,  I'll  come  —  and  see  your  son." 

And  we  had  touched  hands  again  perfunctorily  and 
had  gone  our  own  way.  But  Mildred  did  not  abate 
her  excited  interest. 

"You  knew  Ellen  Tracy,"  she  said,  "and  didn't  tell 
me?" 


234  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

Why  hadn't  I  told  her  ?  Was  it  too  remote  an  inter- 
est, or  was  it  too  immediately  connected  with  Blake 
and  Mary,  names  tabooed  between  us. 

" Where  did  you  know  her?"  she  insisted,  and  I 
confessed  that  I  had  carried  Blake  down  to  her  house 
some  months  ago.  But  how  did  Mildred  know  about 
her?  She  scorned  me  for  my  dulness.  Everybody 
knew  Ellen  Tracy  by  name,  she  was  so  rich,  so  well 
born,  and  so  benevolent.  We  must  have  her  to  dinner. 

And  hi  a  day  or  two,  rather  early  in  the  afternoon, 
this,  I  guessed,  to  find  my  son  awake,  though  she  thereby 
might  lose  the  chance  of  meeting  his  father,  Ellen  Tracy 
came.  I  was  in  my  room,  and  at  my  window,  gloom- 
ing at  the  opposite  wall  and  wondering  about  that  look 
of  hers,  when  I  saw  her  cross  the  street  to  my  door. 
I  ran  down  and  opened  it  to  her  before  she  could  touch 
the  bell.  I  felt  like  a  boy  gleefully  excited,  to  whom 
Christmas  has  come  and  happy  adventure  and  great 
risk. 

"He's  just  come  in,"  I  said,  and  she  laughed  all  over 
her  face,  in  that  way  she  had,  understanding  just  what 
it  was  to  me  to  show  my  son. 

She  mentioned  Mildred  with  a  polite  little  inquiry 
of  the  eyebrows,  and  I  said:  — 

"Oh,  yes,  she's  about  somewhere." 

I  persuaded  her  to  slip  off  her  fur  coat  that  made  her 
look  like  a  princess  from  far-away,  and  led  her  up  the 
stairs.  And  in  the  big,  warm  room,  beside  the  open  fire, 
was  the  boy  on  the  hearthrug,  doing  great  feats  with 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  235 

sprawling  and  rhetoric,  while  the  nurse  did  some  deed 
with  empty  dishes  that  had  made  him  so  content.  He 
had  just  come  in  from  the  air,  and  his  red  cheeks  and 
clear  eyes  were  all  I  could  desire ;  and  when  Ellen  Tracy 
crouched  and  invited  him  and  he  wiggled  about,  as  if 
any  way  were  the  way  so  it  were  quick  enough,  I  felt 
like  sending  out  barbaric  cries  like  his,  for  joy  of  it. 
She  loved  the  baby  and  the  baby,  even  if  for  the 
warmth  and  sweetness  of  her  alone,  loved  her  back, 
and  they  did  mysterious  things  with  the  language  and 
cheek  laid  to  cheek.  She  forgot  me,  so  I  thought,  and 
seemed  to  find  such  abundant  comfort  in  the  child 
that  I  felt  my  eyes  hot  with  the  mysterious  pity  of  it. 
And  then  suddenly  she  rose  with  one  of  her  swift  ulti- 
mate gestures  and  put  by  the  child,  he  crying  lustily  after 
her,  and  she  was  gone,  and  I  outside  the  door  still 
begged  her  to  come  for  a  moment  into  my  study  and 
wait  for  Mildred.  No,  Mildred  was  not  in,  I  owned, 
but  she  would  be  presently. 

"You  said  —  "  she  confronted  me  with  those  clear 
eyes  full  of  reproach,  and  I  laughed,  yet  not  ashamed, 
and  owned  I  had  said  it,  but  that  was  because  I  was 
afraid  she  wouldn't  come  in  at  all.  At  that  she  laughed 
indulgently,  as  if  I  were  as  much  a  child  as  young  Eger- 
ton,  still  grieving  up  there,  and  whatever  we  both  wanted 
was  a  small  matter  anyway. 

"You  are  an  absurd  person,"  she  said.  "Yes.  I'll 
look  out  of  your  study  window." 

The  light  was  burning  there,  and  for  the  first  time 


236  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

I  appraised  it  as  a  room  calculated  to  please  the  eye. 
It  had  a  big  dormer  looking  into  the  western  gold,  and 
its  furnishings  were  sumptuous  and  plain.  I  remem- 
bered now  that  Mildred  had  augmented  them  when  a 
photographer  came  to  add  the  print  of  it  to  his  Homes 
of  Authors.  A  foolish  outlay  I  thought  then,  for  it 
served  me  well  enough  with  two  chairs,  a  table,  and  a 
couch.  But  now  I  was  glad,  for  the  pure,  good  lines 
of  the  furnishings  fitted  this  lady  well.  She  walked  to 
the  window  and  faced  the  west. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  in  that  gentle  voice  with  the  thrill 
in  it.  "I  like  your  sky.  And  I  like  your  son,  Mr. 
Redfield.  And  now  will  you  tell  Mrs.  Redfield,  please 
She  was  drawing  a  card  from  the  interleaving 
paper  in  its  case,  but  I  was  beset  by  all  the  spirits  of 
delay  to  keep  her  with  me. 

"You  can't  go  yet,"  I  said.  "I  want  to  tell  you 
something." 

She  was  holding  the  card  now  and  looking  at  me  with 
that  grave  air  of  waiting  interest. 

"Did  you  know,"  I  said  audaciously,  "that  I  write 
books?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  she.  "I've  read  them.  Everybody 
knows  that." 

Immediately  I  guessed  that,  reading  the  books,  she 
yet  thought  small  things  of  them ;  but  the  knowledge, 
instead  of  depressing,  made  me  exhilarated  to  an  absurd 
degree.  Here,  I  said  at  length,  were  true  values. 

"But  Fve  written  one  book  you  haven't  read,"  I 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  237 

told  her.  "I've  written  a  novel.  And  it's  about 
you." 

"About  me?"  The  color  faintly  tinged  her  cheeks, 
and  she  looked  as  if  she  wondered  whether  after  all  I 
needed  to  be  reproved. 

"Yes.  It's  about  you.  It's  so  much  about  you  that 
all  through  it  I  called  you  Ellen  Tracy.  And  now  I've 
changed  the  name,  but  it's  you  just  the  same.  Will 
you  read  it  ?  Will  you  do  that  for  me  ?  " 

I  fancied  her  breath  came  a  little  faster,  and  she 
looked  perplexed  and  even  troubled. 

"Why  should  I  read  your  novel?"  she  asked. 

I  found  a  reason.  My  real  reason  was,  I  think,  that 
I  wanted  her  to  take  it  in  her  hands,  to  know  it,  to 
know  me  a  little,  to  see  I  could  do  something  that  was 
at  least  sincere  after  my  wretched  makeshifts  for  the 
market-place. 

"You  must  tell  me  whether  it's  an  offence,"  I  said, 
"whether  the  likeness  is  anywhere  near  you.  Whether 
the  people  that  know  you  would  say,  '  That's  Ellen 
Tracy.'" 

She  seemed  to  consider  that. 

"Yes,"  she  said.  "I'll  read  it.  But  maybe  I 
shouldn't  know.  We  don't  any  of  us  know  ourselves, 
they  say." 

"I've  not  made  you  happy,"  I  said,  in  the  desire  I 
had  had  from  the  first  when  I  was  with  her  of  telling 
her  everything  under  the  sun.  "I  made  you  love 
somebody  that  didn't  love  you.  But  that  had  to  be. 


238  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

You  were  too  proud.    Your  pride  had  to  be  destroyed, 
hadn't  it  Miss  Tracy?" 

There  rushed  into  her  face  the  stricken  look  I  had 
seen  there  once  before,  the  moment  after  we  had  met 
that  other  night.  I  had  hurt  her.  How  had  I  hurt 
her?  Was  she  so  intrenched  in  her  pride  that  she 
could  not  bear  even  an  imaginary  moment  of  maiden 
shame?  But  it  was  gone  in  an  instant,  whatever  it 
was,  that  hurt  appeal,  and  she  had  righted  her  com- 
posure like  a  noble  ship. 

"Let  me  have  the  manuscript,"  she  said.  " Cer- 
tainly I'll  read  it." 

"It's  heavy,"  I  told  her.     "I'll  send  it  to  you." 

To  that  she  agreed  with  a  slight  air  of  relief  as  if, 
after  all,  I  might  not  send  it ;  and  she  told  me  she  was 
going  back  next  day  to  Hopeful  Sands,  she  and  aunt 
Patten,  who  adored  the  snow  and  sleeping  in  the 
balcony,  and  that  they  were  to  take  down  with  them 
a  couple  of  girl  students  who  were  overworked.  And 
shortly  now  she  was  gone,  and  I  stood  in  the  open  door 
looking  after  her,  my  forehead  tingling  with  a  sense  of 
the  riches  that  had  come  to  my  house.  Halfway  down 
the  street  she  met  Mildred,  and  I  watched  them  with  a 
foolish  sense  that  she  might  return.  But  they  sepa- 
rated, and  Mildred  came  on  alone,  rather  excited  as 
she  had  been  before  at  the  nearness  of  so  indubitable 
a  personage,  and  yet  irritated  because  Hopeful  Sands 
would  prevent  Miss  Tracy  from  dining  with  us  for 
weeks  to  come.  Mildred  was  showing  me  every  day, 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  239 

with  the  utmost  simplicity,  that  she  prized  an  affilia- 
tion with  men  and  women  of  high  degree;  and  so 
beguiling  is  candor  in  its  own  ingenuousness  that  I 
found  myself  saying  from  time  to  time,  "  After  all,  why 
shouldn't  she?  She  likes  people  socially  equipped. 
Why  shouldn't  she  run  them  down  ?" 

But  for  the  first  time,  I  thought  she  did  well  in  her 
pursuit. 

XXIV 

I  SENT  the  manuscript  to  Ellen  Tracy,  and  I  also 
sent  her  a  plea  for  Blake's  bill,  explaining  that,  awkward 
as  it  was,  I  begged  she  would  help  me  out  by  rendering 
it.  I  had  to  see  Blake,  I  told  her,  and  I  couldn't  face 
him  until  my  meddling  in  his  affairs  had  been  justified 
by  her  concurrence,  and  so  on  the  way  to  being  for- 
gotten. The  bill  came,  an  actual  bill,  I  saw  with  ap- 
proval, a  price  no  lower  than  might  reasonably  have 
been  charged  at  any  boarding-house  of  good  standing, 
though,  to  be  sure,  not  sanitarium  prices.  His  pride 
was,  at  all  hazards,  to  be  saved.  The  bill  I  sent  to 
Blake,  and  he  mailed  me  a  check,  evidently  determined 
to  avoid  a  direct  money  transaction  with  her.  And 
I  sent  the  check  to  Ellen  Tracy,  and  got  back  her  bill, 
receipted,  and  next  day,  the  manuscript:  this  also 
without  a  word.  I  was  disconcerted.  Yet,  I  told 
myself,  what  could  she  say?  But  to  say  nothing  was 
the  cut  direct. 


240  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

And  just  then  I  met  Blake,  and  he  was  in  new  clothes, 
a  fine  suit  worn  with  bravado,  and  Wadham,  he  told 
me,  had  raised  his  salary,  and  he  was  that  afternoon 
going  down  to  Hopeful  Sands.  I  put  out  my  hand  to 
him  at  that,  and  he  gave  it  an  impulsive  grip.  I  knew 
what  he  was  going  for,  and  his  answering  handshake 
meant  he  acquiesced  in  my  knowing.  He  was  going 
down  to  ask  Ellen  Tracy  to  live  on  his  increased  salary. 
I  plodded  home  feeling  somehow  "wee,"  as  my  mother 
used  to  say,  as  if  I  were  of  no  particular  account  to 
anybody,  and  other  fellows  were  reaping  all  the  grain, 
snapping  off  all  the  flowers  by  then*  beautiful  heads  to 
garland  themselves  withal.  And  I  went  softly  upstairs 
-  cousin  Thomas  was  in  the  library  sitting  upright  and 
not  talking,  and  Mildred  was  engaged  in  a  mild  patter 
of  words  that  sounded  consolatory  of  something.  I 
went  into  my  den,  sat  down  at  the  table,  and  thought 
it  over.  It  would  be  a  wonder  if  others  had  not  dis- 
covered about  me  what  I  was  now  learning  about  my- 
self, —  that  I  was  a  soft  fellow,  not  even  yet  inured  to 
life,  not  having  caught  the  way  of  luck  —  for  luck  is  a 
law  though  little  understood  —  and  pitifully  at  the 
mercy  of  my  feelings.  When  I  had  been  forced  to 
deny  Mildred  her  way,  it  must  not  be  supposed  I  did 
it  without  payment  of  a  very  heavy  cost.  It  hurt  me 
like  a  knife  to  refuse  her,  and  it  was  a  discomfort  I  had 
to  force  myself  to  face  to  live  with  her  in  the  ordinary 
ways  of  life  after  I  had  denied.  I  had  yielded  to  her  in 
all  matters  concerning  us  two  alone.  I  had  lived  after 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  241 

the  fashion  that  pleased  her,  though  I  had  been  forced, 
in  managing  it,  to  pour  out  stories  until  I  shuddered 
at  the  output.  And  I  could  not  conceal  from  myself 
that  even  in  the  matter  of  the  stories  I  was  on  the  verge 
of  being  a  back  number.  I  had  sold  my  birthright  of 
striving  for  the  higher  slopes,  and  I  had  gained  no  foot- 
hold on  the  steps  below.  I  sat  there  touched  to  the 
soul  by  the  dry  rot  and  mildew  of  life,  the  consciousness 
that,  neither  in  the  things  of  the  earth  nor  the  things 
of  the  spirit  had  I  made  good.  Not  even  in  love  —  but 
when  I  got  there,  according  to  the  loyal  decency  of  men 
I  went  no  further.  Love  was  not  the  world  I  had  fore- 
seen in  my  vision,  the  vision  that  had  blossomed  in 
the  Epithalamium.  Yet  that  I  accepted  with  the  sad 
certainty  that  so  all  men  had  found  it.  The  vision 
of  the  woman-soul  —  that  was  illusion,  but  it  led  us  on, 
if  only  to  this  arid  track  where  I  jogged  to-day.  The 
vision  of  the  fecund  happy  earth  —  that  was  another 
illusion,  but  of  course  everybody  knew  a  world  was 
fruitful  because  somebody  dug  in  it  and  kept  away 
the  weeds.  I  was  engaged  in  digging.  And  I  drew 
my  paper  toward  me  and  wrote  the  title  of  another 
story.  The  stories  came  almost  full-fledged  now.  I 
scarcely  had  to  modify  them  at  all.  I  had  learned  the 
recipe.  But  I  wished  Ellen  Tracy  had  said  a  word 
about  my  manuscript.  Ellen  Tracy!  Was  she,  too, 
that  blossomy  air  about  her,  that  scent  of  sweet  good- 
will, was  she,  too,  an  illusion?  But  I  had  not  gone 
far  enough  in  my  doubt  to  doubt  that  also.  She  shone 


242  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

above  me  like  the  fostering  sun  —  and  I  wrote  my 
story. 

In  about  a  week  after  this  came  a  note  from  Mary. 
She  had  moved.  She  was  in  Blake's  lodging-house 
now,  and  had  taken  a  sitting-room.  I  could  really  call 
in  proper  form.  I  went  at  once,  judging  she  needed  me. 
It  was  the  early  evening,  and  I  found  her  in  the  sitting- 
room,  which  seemed  not  to  justify  its  pretensions.  It 
was  a  rep-furnitured  box  lined  with  three-ply  carpet, 
Mary  said,  with  an  ironic  pride,  and  a  ceiling  that  had 
once  known  whitewash.  I  had  met  Blake  at  the  door, 
so  sad  a  contrast  to  the  Blake  of  the  new  clothes  that  I 
must  have  stared  at  him,  for  he  asked  sharply,  — 
"What's  the  matter?"  adding,  " Going  to  see  Mary? 
Come  round  to  the  Cheese  at  ten." 

He  strode  away  to  his  task,  and  I  watched  the  back 
of  his  seedy  old  overcoat  and  the  dejected  slouch  of  his 
walk. 

"What's  the  matter?"  I  asked  Mary,  when  she  had 
seated  me  and  said  she  was  glad  I  came.  "Matter 
with  Blake,  I  mean." 

Mary  seated  herself  opposite  and  gripped  the  tape 
arms  of  the  camp  chair  with  her  two  capable  hands. 
She  looked  worn  but,  as  she  always  did,  crisp  and  neat 
in  her  fresh  business  suit  that  had  the  ah1  of  being 
ready  to  go  into  action.  She  regarded  me  in  a  grave 
community  of  concern. 

"Why,  she's  rejected  him,  that's  all." 

"Did  he  tell  you?" 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  243 

"No.     He  doesn't  need  to  tell  me." 

"Well,"  I  said. 

"It  was  bound  to  come,"  said  Mary.  "I'm  glad 
it's  over." 

I  too  was  glad  it  was  over,  and  in  some  mad  way,  it 
seemed,  fortunately,  rapturously,  over.  I  had  wanted 
Ellen  Tracy  to  marry  Blake,  because  it  seemed  as  if  we 
must  all  do  what  Blake's  genius  required  of  us;  but 
if  she  could  not,  if  she  would  not,  if  she  was  to  be  Ellen 
Tracy  still  —  my  blood  surged  and  blinded  me,  and 
choked  my  breath. 

"But  he'll  go  under,"  Mary  was  saying.  "As  sure 
as  you're  a  living  soul,  he'll  go  all  to  pieces.  You  step 
in  now  and  take  a  hand." 

What  was  I  to  do?  I  felt  her  maternal  quality  so 
strongly  that  it  became  not  only  maternal  devotion 
and  authority  but  all-knowingness. 

"He's  got  to  be  encouraged  to  print  his  play." 

"Print  it  ?     I  thought  he  burned  it." 

"Yes,  he  did.  But  when  I  copied  it,  I  did  a  carbon 
copy.  I  kept  the  carbon." 

"Miraculous  Mary!"  I  said.  "Whatever  warned 
you  to  do  that?" 

She  answered  rather  wearily.  I  fancied  she  was 
glancing  back  over  the  long  road  of  her  service  to 
Blake. 

"Oh,  I  always  did  that  with  his  things.  He's  very 
careless.  I  never  knew  what  would  happen." 

"Have  you  saved  it  all,  all  his  verse?" 


244  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"  Every  thing  that  isn't  printed.  After  it  was  printed 
there  was  no  sense  in  saving  it." 

I  looked  at  her  in  man's  perennial  admiration  and 
wonder  over  the  fostering  maternal. 

"And  he  doesn't  know  it?" 

"Why,  no,"  said  Mary.     She  seemed  suddenly  shy. 

"I'll  tell  him,  if  you  won't."  I  wanted,  in  my  blun- 
dering zeal,  at  least  to  earn  her  his  gratitude. 

At  that  Mary  went  all  to  pieces  in  a  way  I  thought  she 
didn't  know.  I  must  not.  I  should  do  him  no  good. 
I  should  do  her  only  harm. 

"Very  well,"  I  said.  "Don't  cry,  Mary,  for  God's 
sake.  I  should  as  soon  expect  to  see  a  sunset  crying  — 
or  a  beech  tree." 

"  They  do  cry,"  said  Mary,  with  a  touch  of  a  smile 
through  the  tears  on  her  lashes,  "in  a  rain.  You  hear 
to  me,  Mr.  Redfield.  It's  my  secret,  and  you're  not 
to  tell.  You've  no  right." 

Well,  I  had  no  right ;  but  I  still  badgered  her  to  ex- 
plain to  me  why  so  simple  and  yet  so  faithful  a  friendli- 
ness must  not  be  disclosed.  She  answered  with  a  lovely 
dignity. 

"He  wouldn't  like  it,  that's  all.  I  mustn't  make  him 
take  favors.  He  can't  return  them." 

He  couldn't  return  them  because  she  did  them  in  love, 
and  Blake  couldn't  love  her.  I  heard  again  the  mut- 
tered "Sacrilege,  sacrilege,"  of  that  dark  hour  of  Blake's 
downfall,  and  saw  Mary's  acceptance  of  his  chosen  dis- 
tance from  her. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  245 

"Mary,"  I  said,  "you're  a  darling.  I'll  go  to  the 
Toasted  Cheese  and  find  him.  And  if  he  should 
happen  to  ask  me  who's  his  guardian  angel,  why,  I 
won't  tell." 

She  brought  out  from  the  table  drawer,  where  she 
had  it  in  readiness,  the  neat  copy  of  his  play.  This 
she  gave  me. 

"Ask  him  to  publish  it,"  she  said.  "He'll  say  there 
isn't  a  copy.  Tell  him  there  was  an  extra  one  lying 
round  and  you  found  it.  Then  give  it  to  him." 

"He'll  suspect  you.  He'll  know  I've  just  come  from 
here." 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Mary,  drily.  "He  won't  suspect 
me.  He  won't  think  of  me  unless  you  lug  me  in." 

But  that  I  considered  unjust.  Blake  did  often  think 
of  her,  in  a  tender  friendliness.  I  left  her  standing 
there  a  little  wan,  because  she  was  not  used  to  tears  and 
they  took  a  good  deal  out  of  her,  yet  relieved  at  having 
set  things  in  motion,  and  hurried  away  to  the  Toasted 
Cheese,  where  I  found  Johnnie  McCann  reading  a  poem 
of  his  own  and  inquiring  why  it  wasn't  as  good  as 
anybody's.  It  was  evident  that  nobody  was  listening 
very  hard  before  I  came,  but  now  they  gave  up  listening 
at  all,  to  fall  on  me  as  a  stranger  who  after  all  didn't 
deserve  a  welcome  because  I  had  become  a  greasy 
citizen.  How  many  teas  did  I  go  to  in  the  course  of  an 
afternoon  ?  they  demanded.  And  did  I  have  a  sitting 
in  a  church,  and  was  I  by  chance  a  deacon  yet?  I 
liked  them  so  well  that  I  probably  did  nothing  but  grin 


246  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

in  answer,  though  I  shook  them  off  as  soon  as  might 
be  to  get  to  Blake,  who  was  sitting  in  a  corner,  patiently 
tutoring  a  little  white-faced  lad  in  the  reasons  why  his 
first  manuscripts  hadn't  been  salable. 

"It's  too  good,"  Blake  was  pelting  at  him.  "It's 
too  infernally  good."  And  then,  when  the  lad's  face 
shone  all  over  transfigured,  as  if  he  were  avid  and  had 
never  yet  tasted  praise,  Blake  added,  "And  it's  too 
infernally  bad.  You've  written  after  the  old  models. 
Nobody  wants  that  now.  And  well  they  shouldn't. 
If  you've  got  life  in  you,  let  it  out,  if  you  have  to  take 
your  jackknife  and  rip  up  your  veins  to  show  your 
blood." 

And  the  boy  looked  now  like  a  hero  of  high  resolve 
or  a  sacrificial  victim  led  to  a  slaughter  he  adored.  He 
took  his  manuscript  back,  said  "Thankyou,  Mr.  Blake," 
and  went  away  with  his  consecrated  look,  doubtless 
to  find  a  place  to  write  in. 

"How  are  you,  Redfield?"  said  Blake. 

He  passed  a  hand  across  his  forehead,  but  it  could  not 
smooth  the  knots  there.  I  think  he  had  forgotten 
having  seen  me  before  that  night.  I  rushed  pell-mell 
into  my  mission. 

"Blake,"  said  I,  "aren't  you  going  to  publish  your 
play?" 

He  glanced  at  me  darkly,  as  a  man  might  if  his 
child  had  died  and  another  man  had  used  the  child's 
name  roughly. 

"There  isn't  any  play,"  he  said.     "I  burned  it." 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  247 

The  look  of  remembered  suffering  came  upon  his 
face.  The  minute  when  he  had  burned  the  play  was, 
I  saw,  forever  present  with  him. 

"  There  was  an  extra  copy  kicking  round,"  I  said,  as 
bluffly  as  I  could.  "I  came  on  it  to-night.  I've 
brought  it  to  you." 

I  pulled  it  awkwardly  forth,  and  laid  it  down  before 
him.  Who  save  those  of  us  who  try  to  climb  that 
steep,  knows  the  power  of  the  written  word  upon  the 
weaver  of  the  webs  of  mimic  life?  His  eyes  glittered 
as  if  he  were  starving  and  saw  food,  his  lips  quivered 
like  the  lips  of  the  man  who  remembers  his  dead  love, 
and  thinks  he  sees  her  wraith  before  him.  He  broke 
open  the  cover  —  now  Johnnie  McCann  was  singing  a 
song  about  an  Irishman  who  got  the  better  of  the 
devil  —  and  ran  over  the  leaves  rapidly.  He  had 
been  stale  from  work  on  it,  I  could  well  believe,  and 
now,  coming  back  to  it  fresh  from  his  grind  at  the 
Thief,  it  struck  him  anew  with  all  the  dewy  simplicity 
of  its  worth.  His  face  gained  color.  He  was  young. 
And  having  run  through  it  to  see  that  none  of  its 
divinity  was  lost,  he  furled  the  leaves  and  slapped 
them  to  and  confronted  me,  triumphant  eye  to  in- 
quiring eye  of  mine,  and  said:  — 

"Redfield,  I  never'll  forget  this  of  you.  And  Red- 
field,  I  tell  you  it's  —  it's  great  stuff." 

Was  he  going  to  put  his  head  down  on  the  table 
and  cry?  Was  I  going  to  see  two  images  of  strength 
and  potency  give  way  in  one  night?  But  Blake  was 


248  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

not  that  kind.  He  simply  did  up  the  manuscript, 
tied  it  with  an  artisan's  care,  leaned  back  in  his  seat, 
breathing  a  little  faster,  and  still  with  that  transfigur- 
ing color  in  his  face,  and  said :  - 

"Dry  up,  Johnnie." 

It  was  nothing  to  me  whether  Johnnie  sang  or  held 
his  peace.  I  was  speculating  on  Blake,  trying  to 
understand.  What  was  this  thing  so  real  that  it 
broke  his  torpor  of  despair,  that  he,  his  heart  all  love- 
lies-bleeding, should  rise  to  his  feet  at  a  mere  hail 
from  the  Muses,  ready  not  merely  to  stagger  on  again, 
but  walk  or  run?  How  had  I  missed  it,  the  divine 
worship  of  it,  so  that  hearing  the  beat  of  stanzas  in 
my  ears  I  should  hunger  no  more,  neither  thirst  any 
more?  Had  I  sacrificed  to  the  wrong  gods?  This 
was  something  to  think  over.  And  yet  I  had  not 
missed  it  wholly.  It  was  ever  with  me,  a  divine 
regret,  a  malaise,  as  of  him  who  having  once  heard 
the  horn  on  magic  mountains,  thenceforth  languishes 
sickly  for  its  note  again.  But  I  had  chosen,  I  told 
myself.  I  had  chosen  wife  and  child.  And  let  who 
dare  forswear  the  natural  tie  for  immortality. 

XXV 

THE  spring  came  and  early  summer,  and  I  took  a 
house  in  the  country,  with  the  purpose,  though  I 
knew  it  was  ruinously  extravagant,  of  transporting 
all  my  cumbersome  household  machinery  there.  I 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  249 

revolted  at  this  inwardly.  I  didn't  see  why  we  should 
need  to  dine  in  such  scrupulous  state  in  the  months 
when  we  had  escaped  the  house  of  bondage,  nor  really 
why  there  must  be  delicate  courses  and  silent  servi- 
tors, and  even  the  aprons  I  resented,  they  were  of 
such  a  gloss.  Besides,  I  was  scared  at  the  expense  of 
it  all,  and  I  drifting  every  day  nearer  the  status  of  a 
back  number.  But  when  I  asked  Mildred  if  she 
wasn't  going  to  be  a  sport  and  come  into  the  wilder- 
ness with  me  for  one  summer  —  I  ached  for  a  tent 
and  the  taste  of  fish  scorched  over  the  coals  —  she 
looked  at  me  in  a  mild  surprise  and  asked  if  I  didn't 
want  Egerton  to  be  within  reach  of  a  doctor,  and  if 
I  thought  you  could  live  too  comfortably  for  a  grow- 
ing child.  Well,  I  thought  you  could ;  I  remembered 
there  were  brown,  happy  children  that  played  naked 
in  the  sand,  and  never  had  their  temperatures  taken. 
Yet  he  was  my  child,  and  I  was  as  fond  and  foolish 
over  him  as  doating  father  ever  managed  to  be ;  and 
we  were  civilized  and  not  savages,  and  since  she  told 
me  to  be  afraid,  I  was  as  afraid  as  she.  And  just  as 
we  had  accomplished  the  moving  of  our  equipage,  I 
had  an  exceedingly  good  offer  to  go  to  England  on 
some  investigating  for  Rees  and  Dresser.  I  suspected 
they  were  tired  of  my  Little  Italy,  and  had  cast  about 
for  some  live  job  to  pufme  on.  When  I  got  the  letter 
I  had  time,  on-  the  way  upstairs  to  Mildred,  to  go 
quite  daft  over  it.  I  was  to  see  England,  and  she 
would  see  it  with  me.  To  my  unbounded  surprise 


250  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

striking  athwart  my  pleasure,  she  would  not  go.  Was 
it  the  boy  ?  We  should  take  him  too,  of  course. 

"Let  the  house  go  hang,"  I  said.  "We  can  sublet 
or  shut  it  up  and  pay  the  rent"  —  but  here  she  stopped 
me. 

It  was  not  the  boy.  But  he  and  she  would  stay 
quietly  in  New  England.  It  was  better  for  him. 
And  to  that  I  reconciled  myself,  really  because  I 
must,  and  also  because  there  was  no  time  to  gainsay 
anything,  such  was  the  haste  of  my  departure.  And 
like  a  dream  the  good-bys  were  over  and  I  was  on 
blue  water  and  mad  with  freedom  and  delight.  What 
did  I  mean  by  the  freedom  I  rejoiced  in?  Not  free- 
dom from  her  and  my  dear  son.  I  was  bound  to  them 
every  day  with  triple-plaited  cords,  by  the  fibres  of 
habit,  by  the  tyrannical  strands  of  fostering  duty.  I 
had  made  my  life,  and  I  would  not  have  it  otherwise : 
yet  I  was  free.  Mildred  had  summoned  an  ancient 
aunt  from  somewhere  in  the  middle  west  to  bear  her 
company.  The  hypothetical  aunt,  I  called  her:  for 
I  had  never  guessed  of  her  until  this  exigency,  and  if 
I  had  not  heard  cousin  Thomas  also  refer  to  her  as 
aunt  Rule,  I  shouldn't  have  been  able  to  visualize  her 
at  all.  He  hadn't  the  imagination  for  a  hypothesis. 
Her  name  predicted  that  she  was  of  his  lineage. 

If  anybody  seeing  me  on  that  fairy  voyage  after- 
ward remembered  me,  it  must  have  been  as  a  dazed, 
cranky  fellow,  wild  with  the  sea,  and  boorish  in  his 
inattention  to  the  rules  of  the  sea-going  game.  I 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  251 

tramped  and  stared.  When  we  got  into  port  I  was 
starved  for  sleep.  The  night  had  put  her  spell  on  me, 
and  the  stars  I  had  forgotten  in  my  city  toil.  And 
then  England,  beneficent,  our  mother,  adored  with 
every  inner  fibre  of  us,  England  took  me  to  her  breast, 
and  I  swore,  in  the  first  week,  I  would  "  return  no 
more."  Mildred  and  the  boy  should  come  over,  and 
we  would  live  on  our  enthusiasms.  This  I  wrote  to 
her,  but  she  replied  at  once  that  it  wasn't  to  be  thought 
of.  I  already  had  a  position  in  America.  To  abandon 
it  with  no  hope  of  making  a  new  way  was  unpardonable 
folly.  So  I  did  my  two  months'  work  to  the  tune  of 
all  the  accumulated  memories  in  me,  and,  last  act 
of  my  happy  stay,  made  pilgrimage  to  Kent  where 
Egerton  Sims  was  born.  I  found  it,  the  house,  im- 
memorially  old,  and  full  of  dignity.  The  owner  was 
not  at  home.  Perhaps  I  should  not  have  presented 
myself  to  him  as  in  any  way  demanding  special  recog- 
nition if  he  had  been.  But  I  went  into  the  church 
and  saw  the  Egerton  tombs  and  the  recumbent  an- 
cestors my  friend  had  told  me  of,  and  only  when  I 
put  my  name  in  the  visitors'  book  at  the  house  did  I 
permit  myself  to  write  after  my  name,  " Trinidad." 
I  think  I  vowed  something  over  those  Egerton  graves : 
perhaps  it  was  a  vow  of  fealty  to  him,  my  feudal  lord, 
and  perhaps  it  concerned  my  son.  The  thought  of 
my  son  was  very  strong  upon  me  in  those  days,  be- 
cause I  was  turning  toward  home,  and  now  the  West 
drew  me  as  potently  as  the  East  had  done.  And 


252  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

when  I  stepped  on  board  the  steamer,  homeward 
bound,  I  heard  a  voice  that  moved  me  like  a  call  to 
things  beloved :  Ellen  Tracy's  voice,  and  it  stirred 
me,  I  believed,  not  only  because  she  was  such  a  lady 
paramount,  but  because  she  was  a  part  of  home  and 
the  things  to  be.  There  she  stood  on  deck,  a  Viking's 
daughter,  clad  in  blue,  the  proud  serenity  of  her  air, 
the  wholesome  well  being  of  her,  such  as  in  no  other 
woman  I  had  seen.  The  others  might  have  come 
from  mountain  climbing  or  the  tonic  of  the  sea,  but 
beside  her  they  paled.  She  was  simply  life,  life  of 
the  body,  life  of  the  mind  and  soul,  concentrated  will 
and  movement  and  delight.  All  this  I  thought  before 
I  got  to  her  among  the  high-voiced  groups,  and  I 
almost  put  my  hand  on  the  arm  of  her  blue  coat,  I 
was  so  glad.  But  aunt  Patten  saw  me,  she  in  a  par- 
ticularly obstinate  bonnet,  insisted  on  in  loyalty  to 
the  olden  time,  and  in  a  laughable  contrast  to  some 
Parisian  mantle  that  had  taken  her  eye.  I  was  to 
find  out  that  this  was  aunt  Patten's  sartorial  line. 
Her  life  was  a  series  of  ardent  impulses  and  old  devo- 
tions, and  she  would  wear  the  latest  thing  in  stubborn 
company  with  an  ancient  preservation.  Aunt  Patten 
was  delighted,  plainly.  She  liked  young  men.  Not 
that  I  was  so  callow  then,  but  sufficiently  young  by 
contrast  with  the  long  avenue  of  her  recollections. 

"  Ellen,"  she  said,  grasping  my  hand  decisively  in 
her  small  one,  " Ellen,  do  you  see?" 

Ellen  turned,  but  just  then  others  surged  between, 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  253 

and  when  we  could  really  meet,  I  found  Miss  Tracy 
was  greeting  me  rather  gravely  and  with  a  composure 
almost  stiff.  But  aunt  Patten  talked  for  two.  She 
was  delighted  to  see  me,  so  she  said.  I  reminded  her 
of  her  native  land.  Let  her  once  get  back  to  her 
native  land,  and  you'd  see  whether  she'd  leave  it 
again.  She'd  no  doubt  she  should  adore  Europe  if 
she  could  ever  find  it  in  its  ordinary  clothes,  not 
overrun  by  a  million  Americans  and  spouting  tea  at 
every  pore. 

"But  you  want  to  get  back  to  your  Americans," 
her  niece  reminded  her.  She  had  the  air  of  treating 
her  like  a  much  indulged  child. 

Oh,  Americans  were  well  enough  in  their  habitat, 
said  aunt  Patten.  It  was  only  when  they  began  to 
scurry  over  Europe,  staring  at  things,  that  they  made 
her  nervous.  And  was  that  her  trunk  going  by  ?  She 
should  perish  if  she  couldn't  get  at  her  chinchilla  — 
and  so  talking,  they  left  me,  with  a  quiet  little  bow, 
too  formal,  I  thought,  from  Ellen  Tracy. 

It  proved  that  we  were  not  neighbors  at  table,  and 
they  didn't  appear  on  deck  that  night.  The  meeting 
had  left  me  thoughtful.  Miss  Tracy  was  not  on  the 
ground  where  I  had  left  her.  This,  I  felt  with  a 
tendency  to  reproach,  was  not  fair.  Where  was  the 
old  familiar  intercourse  of  Hopeful  Sands?  It  was 
almost  as  if  she  had  some  reason  for  repulsing  me. 
What  had  I  done  ?  Was  it  the  matter  of  the  novel  ? 
That  I  would  boldly  ask. 


254  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

It  was  two  full  days  before  she  came  on  deck,  and 
then  aunt  Patten,  a  limp  wraith  of  a  creature,  clung 
to  her,  and  after  a  stoical  twenty  minutes  had  to  be 
carried  down  again.  This  I  did  —  she  was  a  feather 
weight  —  and  all  the  time  she  kept  up  a  protesting 
motion  of  her  hand,  an  action  which  meant,  she  told 
me  afterward,  that  I  was  not  to  speak  to  her.  If 
anybody  spoke,  she  said,  to  her,  to  anybody,  she  was 
prepared  to  die.  And  it  was  another  full  day  before 
Ellen  Tracy  appeared  again;  but  when  I  saw  her 
pacing  the  deck  with  a  lithe  swiftness  that  means  the 
delight  in  freedom,  I  made  for  her  at  once,  and  asked 
if  I  might  walk  with  her.  She  accepted  me,  rather 
as  an  infliction,  I  thought,  and  we  strode  on,  equally 
alive  to  the  glory  of  the  tumbling  waves  under  us  and 
the  taste  of  the  spray-wet  breeze.  If  she  had  resent- 
ment against  me  she  couldn't  hold  it  in  the  face  of 
such  a  day,  and  presently  we  were  talking  fast :  about 
Mildred  first.  I  had  to  tell  where  I  had  left  her  and 
the  boy,  and  whether  they  were  well.  It  wasn't 
simulated,  this  interest  of  hers,  to  fulfil  the  canons  of 
accepted  life.  She  really  cared  to  know  how  Mildred 
was.  She  really  cared  about  the  boy.  After  I  had 
fatuously  rehearsed  some  of  the  boy's  precocious 
aptitudes,  I  did  have  the  grace  to  own  my  common 
failing  with  the  world  of  fatherhood.  Yet  he  was 
my  boy,  and  of  course  he  did  seem  different. 
"Of  course/'  she  said.  "He's  splendid." 
And  I  believed  she  had  seen  him  so.  I  told  her 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  255 

incidentally  what  I  had  been  doing  in  England,  and 
she  warmed  to  that  and  said  it  was  wonderful  that 
now  every  man  was  a  citizen  of  the  world.  He  wasn't 
fighting  isolated  problems  in  his  own  corner.  He  was 
covering  land  and  sea  to  find  out  what  other  men  did. 
She  quite  glowed  over  that.  I  fancied  she  would  like 
an  adventurous  wandering,  and  she  owned  as  much. 
Only  she  wasn't  willing  to  get  very  far  from  aunt 
Patten.  By  the  time  the  sunset  came,  and  we  had 
talked  about  sailing  into  the  golden  west  with  the 
old  adventurers,  I  felt  we  were  really  very  good  friends 
indeed.  Her  early  stiffness  had  gone,  and  when  it 
seemed  in  danger  of  coming  back,  I  found  I  could 
dissipate  it,  for  some  unknown  reason,  by  a  mention 
of  Mildred  and  the  child.  And  after  dinner  I  sought 
her  again  very  far  forward  in  a  dark  spot  of  her  own. 
The  wind  had  come  up,  and  few  were  on  deck,  the 
major  part  preferring  the  stuffy  seclusion  of  the  music 
room  and  a  dissonant  clamor  of  popular  songs.  The 
moon  was  out,  and  the  waves  were  breaking  in  foam. 
What  with  the  motion  of  the  water  and  the  flying 
clouds  and  the  wind  on  our  faces,  we  seemed  to  be 
racing.  I  found  a  high  excitement  in  it  and  so,  I 
think,  did  she.  I  was  in  accord  with  it,  daring  enough 
for  anything,  and  so  I  said:  — 

"What  made  you  send  back  my  manuscript  with- 
out a  word?" 

She  was  silent  so  long  that  I  doubted  whether  she 
was  going  to  answer  at  all.  The  cloaked  figure  be- 


256  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

side  me  grew  to  be  an  inscrutable  one  that  might 
never  speak.  Suddenly  when  I  was  listening  for  a 
word,  a  little  whip  of  her  hair  got  loose  and  lashed  me 
across  the  cheek.  That  seemed  a  kind  of  answer, 
and  the  thought  pounced  on  my  quieter  consciousness 
that  if  it  did  it  again  I  should  like  to  take  it  in  my 
teeth  and  hold  it  there.  And  I  laughed,  with  some- 
thing savage  in  the  feel  of  the  laughter,  and  for  this  I 
was  not  prepared. 

"What  is  it  ? "  she  said.     " Why  did  you  laugh ?  " 

It  was  impossible  to  meet  her  with  small  subter- 
fuges. You  felt  she  understood  everything  and  would 
understand,  and  your  soul  could  walk  before  her  un- 
ashamed. 

"Your  hair,"  I  said.     "It  hit  me  like  a  whip." 

Instantly  she  did  some  furling  of  her  headgear,  and 
I  repented  of  my  honesty:  for  I  should  have  liked 
the  little  whip  to  flick  at  me  again. 

"I  didn't  write  to  you,"  she  said  at  length,  as  if 
it  were  the  statement  of  a  fact  I  asked  for. 

"No,  I  know  you  didn't.     Why  didn't  you?" 

She  didn't  seem  to  know,  and  in  a  moment  she 
said  that  exactly. 

"I  don't  really  know." 

"Did  you  think  I  had  made  a  portrait  of  you?" 

She  hesitated. 

"I  could  see  you  had  tried." 

"But  was  it  a  good  portrait?  That's  what  I  asked 
you  to  tell  me.  Would  anybody,  —  would  aunt 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  257 

Patten,  for  instance,  looking  at  it,  have  said,  'That's 
very  like'?" 

She  laughed  a  little,  suddenly. 

"Mr.  Redfield,"  she  said  with  a  delightful  candor," 
"the  woman  is  tremendously  charming.  She  charmed 
even  me.  And  I  read  the  book  with  the  greatest 
prejudice  in  the  world." 

"You  did?    Why,  now?" 

"Because  you  said  she  was  like  me.  So  I  was  pretty 
nervous  over  it.  I  expected  to  meet  all  my  faults." 

"And  did  you?" 

"No.    The  creature  hadn't  one." 
.  "There !"   I  cried,  in  an  unreasoning  triumph,  as  if 
I  had  proved  something.     "You  see." 

"She  hadn't  a  fault.  But  the  way  she  was  like  me 
was  in  little  tricks,  the  way  I  feel  things,  the  inside 
part  of  me." 

"So  she  was  like  you.  Now  why  couldn't  you  say 
that  at  the  time?" 

"It  was  puzzling.  She  seemed  a  portrait  of  the  me 
I  thought  nobody  knew  but  me.  I  don't  know  that 
I'd  ever  seen  that  me  before.  I  don't  believe  I  think 
about  myself  so  very  much.  But  there  she  was.  I 
got  quite  embarrassed  with  her." 

I  was  in  high  triumph.  At  last  I  had  done  some- 
thing that  nature  itself  owned  for  faithfulness. 

"Was  that  all  the  reason  you  wouldn't  talk  about 
her?"  I  persisted.  "She  was  too  like  —  too  beauti- 
ful to  fit  your  humility?" 


258  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"No/'  she  said,  "it  wasn't  all." 

I  could  hear  no  niceties  of  tone  in  her  voice,  what 
with  the  rush  of  water  and  the  small  tumult  of  the 
wind.  She  might  have  been  indifferent  or  she  might 
have  been  subtly  moved  and  yet  bent  from  necessity 
on  making  me  hear. 

"What  was  it,  then?"  I  asked,  and  she  made  no 
answer.  "Had  I  made  you  angry?"  I  insisted. 
"Had  I  somehow  hurt  your  pride?  You're  very 
proud,  you  know." 

"Am  I?"  she  said,  perhaps  wistfully.  "You  said 
that  before.  Am  I  proud?" 

"Wasn't  the  woman  in  the  book  proud?" 

"I  didn't  see  it.  She  seemed  to  behave  just  as 
she  must  behave  in  the  circumstances,  that's  all." 

"You  see,"  said  I,  again  from  my  triumph.  "It 
only  seemed  natural  to  you.  So  you  see  you  would 
have  behaved  in  just  that  way.  Yes.  She  was 
proud.  And  you're  proud,  too,  I  can  tell  you." 

She  murmured  something  that  sounded  like,  "Dear 
me !"  and  I  imagined  the  tone  was  one  of  concern. 

"Come,"  I  said,  "there  was  another  reason.  What 
was  it?" 

The  moon  came  out  divinely  from  the  flying  fleece, 
for  the  bright  purpose,  it  seemed  to  me,  of  lighting 
Ellen  Tracy's  face  for  me  to  read.  And  it  was  sad, 
not  passionately  so,  but  patiently,  as  if  with  a  sad- 
ness she  had  accepted.  It  was  thoughtful,  too. 

"I  ought  to  have  written,"  she  said.     "I  see  that. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  259 

I  didn't  fully  realize  it  meant  something  practical  to 
you.  You  want  to  publish  the  book.  You  wanted 
to  see  whether  it  offended  me.  It  doesn't.  Publish 
it,  by  all  means." 

But  I  felt  I  must  know  more,  not  for  the  book's 
sake,  but  somehow  for  my  own. 

"And  it  didn't  make  you  angry?"  I  persisted. 

"Oh,  no." 

"But"  —  I  knew  this  —  "it  made  you  sad." 

A  touch  of  the  pride  I  had  accused  her  of  came 
into  her  port  here.  She  lifted  her  head  with  a  little 
toss  and  then,  perhaps  because  she  had  been  so  accused, 
abased  it. 

"It's  a  beautiful  book,"  she  said  conclusively,  with 
an  impersonal  kindliness,  and  I  knew  I  was  to  ap- 
proach no  nearer  to  her  inner  mind.  But  that  was 
heaven  to  hear. 

"Is  it  a  beautiful  book?"  I  cried.  "Do  you  really 
think  so?" 

"I  know  so." 

She  was  answering  with  the  indulgence  of  one  who 
saw  what  praise  would  mean  to  the  workman  and  was 
willing  to  accord  him  generously  his  due.  Yet  no 
more  than  his  just  due.  Art  was  too  sacred  to  her. 
She  would  not  demean  it  by  the  tinsel  showers  of 
flattery.  An  enormous  hunger,  a  great  egotism,  pos- 
sessed me,  and  I  craved  knowing  just  where  she  put 
me  among  men. 

"But  you  don't  think  my  other  work  was  beautiful  ? " 


260  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

I  dared.  "  You  said  you'd  read  it.  There's  no  beauty 
there." 

She  paused.  I  knew  why.  It  was  because  she 
was  so  kind. 

"You  mustn't  trust  to  me,"  she  said,  at  length. 
"I'm  no  critic." 

"But  you  know !"  I  was  sure  that  out  of  the  in- 
tegrity of  her  life,  the  sanity  and  dutifulness  that  had 
never  once  let  her  accept  a  show  for  substance,  from 
her  sensitiveness,  too,  she  was  the  truest  critic.  "You 
know,  and  so  do  I.  My  books  are  rot." 

"No."  She  was  glad  to  combat  me.  "It's  work  a 
lot  of  people  care  about.  They  care  for  it  tremen- 
dously. I've  been  asking  people  since  I  knew  you, 
and  I  assure  you  they  do  care." 

"The  doctor  who  says  he  can't  read  tragedy  ?  He 
sees  enough  of  that  in  real  life.  The  broker  that 
says  he  wants  something  pleasant  to  take  his  mind 
off?" 

I  spoke  laughingly,  but,  to  my  own  surprise,  with 
bitterness.  I  knew  exactly  where  my  stories  stood  before 
the  god  of  work.  I  thought  far  worse  of  them  than  she 
would  let  herself  say ;  but  when  she  did  even  so  lightly 
reflect  my  scorn  of  them,  a  great  bitterness  rose  in  me 
and  tinged  the  words.  It  was  strong  and  I  could  taste 
it.  They  were  fakes,  those  stories ;  but  so  much  time 
had  gone  to  the  making  of  them  ! 

"Not  all,"  she  said  gently.  "Aunt  Patten  loves 
them." 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  261 

"Well,"  I  said,  in  my  ironical  self -scorn,  "I  shall 
write  henceforth  to  boil  the  pot  as  usual  —  and  to 
please  aunt  Patten." 

She  had  retreated  from  the  rail,  as  if  she  meant  to 
leave  me,  but  I  could  see  she  had  also,  perhaps  with 
purpose,  turned  so  that  the  moon  no  longer  had  do- 
minion. Her  face  in  shadow,  she  said,  as  if  it  had  to 
be,  because  she  had  hurt  me,  and  yet  there  was  no  way 
of  saying  it :  — 

"Mr.  Redfield,  if  you  did  only  one  thing  in  a  life- 
time like  the  poem,  the  Epithalamium,  it  would  be 
enough." 

My  eyes  were  hot  with  tears,  not  unworthy  tears 
of  a  hurt  pride,  but  love  of  her  sweet  kindliness. 

"Did  you  read  it?"  I  asked  absurdly,  for  of  course 
she  had. 

"The  other  day.  I  couldn't  read  it  twice,"  she 
said,  with  a  little  broken  laugh.  "It  is  so  sacred,  so 
sacred  to  you  —  to  life.  It's  —  it's  like  holy  books 
that  only  the  priests  can  read.  Good-night." 

She  had  thought  she  comforted  me  by  that  high 
praise,  but  I  stood  there  bleeding  inwardly  at  know- 
ing what  she  must  think  of  me  for  imprinting  my 
living  heart  on  a  magazine  page. 

XXVI 

THE  next  day  I  did  not  see  her  until  we  were  near- 
ing  port,  and  my  hunger  for  her  grew  until  I  could 


262  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

scarcely  tolerate  my  own  fretful  company.  The  day's 
programme,  walking  the  deck,  a  smoke,  a  parley  with 
men  —  for  there  were  good  fellows  on  board  —  these 
were  only  nervous  irritants.  What  was  I  doing,  I  asked 
myself  in  the  midst  of  them,  letting  the  time  slip 
when  Ellen  Tracy  was  in  reach  of  my  voice,  and  after 
this  I  might  meet  her  no  more?  I  saw  her  at  the 
dinner  table  though  I  had  to  turn  to  do  it,  thereby 
deflecting  my  neighbor's  commonplaces  because  she 
judged  rightly  I  was  not  listening.  There  sat  Ellen 
Tracy  with  her  air  of  attentive  calm,  her  small,  beau- 
tiful head  in  what  I  called  its  pose  of  pride.  She  wore 
a  black  dress  that  showed  her  neck,  and  there  was 
the  sparkle  of  yellow  gems  about  her  throat.  I  felt 
the  tempestuous  rising  in  my  own  throat  when  I 
looked  at  her  that  once.  It  was  enough,  for  now  I 
could  carry  the  picture  of  her  in  my  innermost  mind, 
and  I  turned  to  my  huffy  neighbor  and  placated  her, 
beginning  the  talk  again  cheerfully.  I  had  thought 
of  a  foolish  way  for  seeing  Ellen  Tracy  again  that 
night.  I  would  put  my  will  on  hers  and  call  her  up 
on  deck.  For  a  moment  of  hot  fancy  that  seemed 
valiant  doing;  and  then  my  blood  cooled  and  I  re- 
membered that  what  shines  like  temerity  in  one  mood 
is  sheer  moonshine  in  another.  So  I  rose  early  from 
my  seat  and  went  over  to  her  as  she  was  leaving  hers. 
A  new  look,  vivid  and  yet  not  comprehensible  to  me, 
leaped  into  her  face  when  she  saw  me.  But  she  greeted 
me  with  her  careful  courtesy,  and  I  said  at  once:  — 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  263 

" Won't  you  come  on  deck?" 

She  hesitated,  and  mentioned  aunt  Patten,  as  if 
she  caught  at  aunt  Patten  for  a  reason.  Then,  to  my 
own  bewilderment,  but  inevitably,  I  found  myself 
commanding  her. 

"Get  your  coat,"  I  said.  "I'll  meet  you  where 
we  were  before." 

She  went  out  of  the  saloon  without  a  word,  and  I 
ran  for  my  cap  and  a  rug  for  her  and  did  meet  her, 
not  where  I  had  said,  but  at  the  head  of  the  com- 
panion way.  I  took  her  to  a  sheltered  place  where 
there  were  the  chairs  I  had  ready,  and  I  was  at  last 
content.  Ever  since  our  talk  of  the  night  before,  I 
had  thought  of  her  with  a  great  longing  and  hope. 
That  was  it.  My  hope  was  in  her.  If  anybody  could 
drag  me  out  of  the  mire  where  I  stuck  with  my  Chris- 
tian's pack  of  bad  literature  on  my  shoulders,  it  was 
she,  because  she  had  clarity,  and  to  be  honest  was 
an  article  of  her  faith.  She  might  not  know  how  to 
show  me  the  road  to  Parnassus  itself,  but  she  would 
at  least  let  me  look  in  the  clear  mirror  of  her  appre- 
ciation and  see  how  little  I  satisfied  her.  We  are 
very  like  children,  we  men,  when  we  come  on  a  creature 
that  draws  and  dominates  us  as  the  mother  soul  alone 
can  do.  Why  should  I  not  be  dominated  and  led? 
The  mother  soul  knew  the  way,  and  without  her  I 
could  not  find  it.  But  I  began,  not  about  myself 
but  about  Blake,  perhaps  because  reference  to  the 
tribunal  of  just  judgments  inevitably  included  him. 


264  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"Blake's  book  is  coming  out/'  I  said. 

"Yes,"  she  answered  unguardedly.     "He  wrote  me." 

Ah !  I  thought,  and  so  he  writes  you.  He  has  not 
given  up  the  quest.  And  out  of  some  pang  it  gave 
me  —  I  should  have  said  then  because  I  wanted  to 
stand  so  near  them  both  and  it  hurt  me  to  be  ignorant 
of  their  relation  to  each  other  —  out  of  this  I  spoke 
roughly  :- 

"Are  you  in  love  with  Blake?" 

"No,"  she  said  as  quickly,  in  a  short  and  sharp 
reprisal  drawn  from  her,  I  knew,  because  I  had  pounced. 
"How  can  you?"  she  added,  in  an  instant  compunc- 
tion, "How  can  you  make  me  say  it?" 

This  gave  me  a  delicious  sense  of  power. 

"Did  I  make  you  say  it?"  I  asked,  in  a  small 
triumph  I  was  at  once  ashamed  of.  But  I  would  not 
forego  it.  "He'll  make  you  love  him,"  I  challenged 
her.  "He'll  make  you  marry  him." 

She  was  silent  for  a  moment,  and  I  knew  she  was 
getting  hold  of  herself.  It  was  a  high  game,  and  I 
was  light-headed,  but  I  did  not  feel  that  I  was  wrong. 
It  had  turned,  this  big  desire  of  mine  to  know  whether 
she  would  have  me  forswear  my  work,  into  the  game 
of  sex.  And  now  she  answered  lightly,  and  in  a  way 
that  said,  "Stand  off,  you  other  mind,  you  other 
soul:"- 

"This  kind  of  talk  isn't  very  profitable." 

I  saw  I  had  lost  ground  with  her,  the  ground  I  had 
unwittingly  won  last  night,  and  I  cursed  myself  for 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  265 

the  foolery  of  being  misled  by  racing  blood.    And  I 
said   the   only   thing   that   could   be   said,    "  Forgive 


me." 


She  didn't  answer  that,  but  with  a  thought  of  her 
own  dignity,  perhaps,  that  would  not  let  her  leave 
the  topic,  went  back  to  Blake. 

"You've  read  his  play/'  she  said.  "I  know  you 
have,  for  he  wrote  me  it  was  through  you  it's  coming 
out." 

"No,"  said  I,  "that's  all  Mary."  And  I  went  on 
and  told  her  what  Blake  must  never  know :  how 
Mary  had  kept  his  nurslings  under  her  warm  wing 
lest  they  suffer  lack. 

She  was  quick  to  answer. 

"Ah,  that's  dear  of  her,  that's  dear.  But  it's  the 
kind  of  thing  she'd  do.  I  haven't  given  up  hope  of 
getting  her  to  stay  with  me  this  winter.  I  think  I 


can." 


"I  don't  know,"  I  said.  "She  thinks  Blake  needs 
her." 

Then  she  surprised  me. 

"I  can't  tell  whether  it  makes  me  impatient  or 
whether  it  doesn't,"  she  said,  "to  have  her  pouring 
out  her  blood  for  him." 

"But  you  said,"  I  reminded  her,  "when  he  broke 
down,  you  know  —  you  said  his  genius  had  to  be  kept 
alive  at  any  cost.  Well,  so  Mary  thinks." 

"I  don't  know,"  said  she.  "Sometimes  I  think 
genius  is  a  heaven-descended  thing.  And  then  again  — ' ' 


266  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"Then  again?" 

"Why,  I  think  it's  only  a  tremendous  aptitude, 
and  if  it  gives  a  man  a  sense  of  privilege,  if  it  conjures 
up  a  big  temptation !  What  would  it  profit  Blake  to 
write  a  song  —  a  song  — " 

"The  song  the  morning  stars  sang  together,"  I 
prompted  her. 

"Yes,  that  song,  if  he  smashed  Mary's  life  and 
strung  his  harp  out  of  her  heart-strings?" 

"But  you  must  remember  he  doesn't  want  to  break 
her  heart,"  I  said.  "We've  got  to  be  fair  to  him. 
He's  found  her  heart  under  his  feet,  millions  of  times, 
and  picked  it  up  gently  and  given  it  to  her.  I've  seen 
him  do  it." 

"Isn't  it  wretched?"  she  said,  and  there  were  tears 
in  her  voice.  "Isn't  it  cruel?  And  Mary  is  the 
softest  thing,  the  most  vulnerable.  If  she  loves  you, 
you  can  hurt  her  with  a  breath." 

"Blake  can't  hurt  her,"  I  denied.  "She's  got 
beyond  that.  She's  simply  the  watch  upon  his  path, 
the  messenger  to  do  his  errands.  No,  he  can't  hurt 
her,  because  there  isn't  a  thing  she  expects  from  him 
or,  after  all,  a  thing  she'd  take." 

"It's  splendid,  isn't  it?"  she  owned.  "Will  it 
ever  be  any  different?" 

"Will  he  ever  love  her,  do  you  mean?  You  ought 
to  be  the  one  to  tell  me  that." 

She  answered  in  a  sudden  royal  exasperation  with 
me  for  my  persistency. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  267 

"Well,  then,  I  do  tell  you.  He  never  will  love  her. 
And  if  he  offered  her  any  of  those  expediencies  men 
do,  a  home,  an  affection,  loyalty,"  —  her  voice  dropped 
here  as  if  in  awe  over  what  a  woman  might  renounce 
—  "why,  Mary  wouldn't  take  it,  that's  all." 

"You  think  she'd  stick  for  the  big  thing  or  nothing  ?" 

"Yes.  If  she  could  marry  him  and  be  a  kind  of 
mother  and  upper  housemaid  to  him,  she  would.  But 
if  she  thought  he  was  trying  to  give  her  things  he  hasn't 
got  to  give  —  no,  Mary  wouldn't  have  them." 

"You  think  Mary's  great  stuff." 

"Oh,  it  isn't  for  herself  so  much.  It's  for  him.  She 
wouldn't  have  him  debase  the  currency.  The  minute 
he  did  —  why,  I  believe  she'd  kill  herself,  or  run  away. 
She'd  know  she'd  hurt  him." 

And  all  this  showed  me  that,  if  Blake  was  such  a 
knight  peerless,  here  was  the  woman  for  him,  com- 
prehending, a  light  upon  the  bosom  of  life.  I  said  it 
daringly. 

"The  more  you  talk  about  them,  the  more  I  see  you're 
the  only  woman  Blake  could  possibly  love." 

"Oh,  no,  I'm  not,"  she  said  wearily.  I  fancied  I 
could  see  in  the  weariness  vistas  of  sad,  perplexing 
thought  over  this  very  thing.  Could  she  or  could  she 
not?  "I'm  a  million  miles  away  from  him.  I  adore 
him  just  as  you  do,  —  as  Blake;  but  for  the  rest,  I'm 
a  million  miles  away." 

Then  I  found  myself  saying  hotly  on  the  heels  of  her 
speech:  — 


268  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"Then  it's  because  you  love  another  man." 

"Yes,"  she  said  in  a  tired  tone,  and  sad,  oh,  infin- 
itely sad,  "it's  because  I've  loved  another  man." 
And  here  she  laughed,  not  mirthfully,  but  as  if  the 
laugh  came  because  she  had  need  of  it  and  called  it. 
"You're  absurd.  Why  must  it  be  because  I've  loved 
another  man?  Must  any  woman  love  your  Blake 
if  she's  not  bespoke  ?" 

"You  must,"  I  said,  angry  with  her  and  myself,  I 
knew  not  why.  "You're  a  mad  enthusiast  about  him. 
You  could  have  taken  one  more  step,  and  there  you'd 
be.  But  you've  filled  your  heart  up  with  another 
man." 

I  spoke  brusquely,  and  she  answered  in  a  soft  reproof. 

"Tell  me,  don't  you  think  there's  any  more  in  love 
than  — that?" 

"That"  weighed  nothing  when  she  said  it,  a  scornful 
gossamer  cast  to  the  winds.  And  I  forgot  I  was 
married  to  a  woman  whom,  I  had  thought  in  that 
earlier  spring,  it  had  been  heaven's  intention  I  should 
love. 

"No,"  I  said,  "I  don't  believe  it." 

"You  don't  believe  love  is  destiny?" 

"No." 

"You  don't  believe  if  you  had  once  felt  it  you  would 
be  —  immune,  I'll  say,  till  you  and  she  met  a  million 
years  from  now  ?  " 

"No." 

"Poor  child,"  she  breathed.     " Poor  child." 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  269 

I  wondered  if  she  meant  me ;  the  words  were  sweetly 
tender.  And  yet  she  might.  Her  compassion  embraced 
the  earth,  and  for  aught  I  knew,  the  stars.  And  I  sat 
there,  quivering  under  some  sense  of  revolt  against  life 
that  had  the  power  to  make  it  seem  other  than  it  was, 
that  could  generate  in  us  such  beliefs,  show  us  such 
entrancing  visions,  and  then,  when  we  had  fulfilled  its 
purposes,  let  the  leaves  fall  and  disclose  to  us  the  bare, 
ugly  trellises  of  our  arbor  of  delight.  But  while  I 
thought  thus,  there  came  upon  me  that  sensation  I  had 
felt  once  before,  of  intimate  communion  with  Ellen 
Tracy,  of  a  perfect  understanding  that  might  well 
make  us  both  laugh  at  the  chances  of  space  and  time. 

"Tell  me,"  I  said.  Without  my  will  I  said  it,  yet 
everything  in  me  was  so  acquiescent  to  our  intercourse 
that  I  saw  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be  said.  "Tell 
me,"  I  said  again,  "do  you  remember?" 

"What?"  She  asked  it  clearly,  yet  I  felt  she  was 
approaching  with  me  a  barrier  she  was  afraid  to  near, 
and  that  she  saw  it  as  I  did  not.  But  she  had  evi- 
dently determined  that  it  was  better  to  look  upon  the 
barrier  together  in  order  not  to  take  that  step  again. 

"Do  you  remember  that  day,"  I  said,  "when  I  asked 
you  if  we  had  known  each  other  before?" 

"Yes."  She  might  have  been  reassuring  a  child,  so 
patient  was  her  tone. 

"Where  was  it?"  I  stumbled  on.  "Where  were 
we?" 

"Why,"  she  said,  "we  were  as  we  are  now." 


270  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

As  we  were  then.  Where  were  we  ?  In  a  beautiful 
place,  my  thankful  heart  told  me,  in  a  safe  place,  for 
it  could  be  entered  by  no  one  but  us  two. 

" Is  it  a  garden?"  I  asked  her. 

The  moon  was  coming  now,  in  a  heavenly  sky. 
There  was  singing  below,  the  foolish  gregarious  pas- 
times of  the  world  that  loves  the  artificial  habits  it  has 
made.  We  two  were  alone  in  our  garden  and  the  world. 
She  was  speaking  gravely,  but  a  thrill  shot  through  her 
voice. 

"I  do  believe  we've  known  each  other  before.  But 
we  mustn't  think  of  it.  It's  not  —  not  healthy." 

"Did  it  frighten  you  the  other  time?"  I  asked  her, 
and  she  answered  without  hesitation,  "  Yes." 

"Do  we  go  away?"  I  groped,  "out  of  our  bodies?" 

"Don't  think  of  it,"  she  bade  me,  earnestly.  "Our 
bodies  were  given  us  to  live  in.  We  simply  mustn't 
think  of  going  out  of  them." 

"Tell  me,"  I  persisted.  "Was  it  ever  so  before 
with  you?" 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

She  was  putting  off  my  question,  I  could  see,  and 
yet  I  meant  to  have  it  answered. 

"We'll  say  we've  gone  into  a  garden.  It  seems  like 
that  to.  me.  Did  you  ever  go  there  —  or  anywhere  — 
like  this,  with  anybody  else?" 

She  waited  a  long  time,  and  I  seemed  to  know  what 
she  was  thinking.  It,  was,  as  we  are  assured  in  dreams 
of  our  best  beloved,  that  we  may  be  our  kindest,  our 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  271 

truest,  our  most  loving,  and  it  will  not  be  misunder- 
stood. 

"No,"  she  said  slowly.  "It  has  been  so  with  no- 
body else.  I  don't  understand  it.  I  can't.  But  I 
don't  think  of  it.  I  mustn't.  And  you  mustn't. 
The  only  thing  we  can  think  is  that  we've  seen  —  we 
see  —  how  —  splendid  things  are.  And  now,"  her 
voice  broke  a  little,  into  a  laugh  half  tears,  "I'm  going 
down  to  aunt  Patten." 

She  seemed,  rising,  to  take  me  with  her  out  of  our 
paradise. 

"But  where  am  I  going?"  I  said,  not  knowing  how 
I  could  let  her  leave  me. 

"We're  all  going  home  as  fast  as  we  can  go,"  said 
the  kind  voice.  "I'm  going  with  aunt  Patten,  and 
you're  going  to  Mildred  and  your  son." 

With  that  she  went  away,  and  with  her  the  last  ray 
of  supersensual  light  had  left  me.  I  knew  she  said 
"Mildred,"  though  she  had  never  called  her  so,  because 
she  wanted  to  bring  her  remindingly  near. 

XXVII 

AFTER  that,  I  had  no  chance  to  see  her  at  all;  only 
to  do  her  some  slight  service  in  the  matter  of  the  cus- 
tom-house and  a  carriage,  and  she  said  good-by  to  me 
with  a  tranquil  sweetness  that  left  me,  too,  at  ease. 
So  full  was  I  of  unspoken  certainties  of  the  biggest  sort 
that  I  should  have  been  a  child  to  whimper.  I  felt 


272  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

grounded  in  some  hope,  poised  in  the  equal  balance 
of  just  and  noble  things.  Indeed,  I  hardly  know  how 
to  tell  the  scope  and  measure  of  my  changed  mind. 
It  was  simply  inseparable  from  my  knowing  Ellen 
Tracy,  and  I  was  the  more  a  man. 

I  sped  down  to  the  Port,  trying  to  recall  myself  to  the 
fact  that  Mildred  and  my  son  were  there,  for  every- 
thing seemed  strange  to  me.  America,  too,  looked 
strange,  its  bright,  lambent  air,  the  sharp  outlines  and 
raw  expedients.  At  the  Port  I  drove  up  to  the  ample 
house  we  had  taken,  and  Mildred  met  me  at  the  steps. 
She  was  very  thin.  In  her  dress  of  a  strange  gray-blue 
she  was  also  lovely  in  a  remote  way;  and  yet,  as  I 
kissed  her,  it  was  with  a  shock,  as  if  she  were  a  stranger. 

"Where  is  he?"  I  kept  saying  while  we  walked  in, 
my  arm  about  her.  Now,  so  near  my  son,  I  was  afraid 
to  delay  another  second,  lest,  having  waited  for  me  so 
long,  he  should  have  gone  off  into  some  land  of  ever- 
during  loss.  "He's  well,  Mildred?  Just  say  he's 
well." 

"Oh,  yes,"  she  told  me,  in  her  even  voice,  "he's  well, 
but  he  got  his  shoes  full  of  sand  and  nurse  is  taking 
them  off." 

I  heard  a  voice  above,  a  peremptory  voice  of  one  to 
whom  sandless  shoes  were  less  than  lunch  delayed,  and 
I  ran  upstairs  and  snatched  my  boy  to  my  arms,  and 
he  roared  at  me  and  fought  me,  and  I  liked  his  passion, 
and  we  had  a  great  old  time  together.  The  nurse 
laughed,  and  Mildred  came  and  tried  to  recall  him  to 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  273 

his  more  praiseworthy  self;  this  I  didn't  permit,  and 
after  we  had  fought,  he  accepted  me,  and  then  I  left 
him  to  his  lunch  and  was  roared  after  because  now  he 
liked  me  well. 

When  Mildred  and  I  were  seated  at  table  in  the  cool 
seclusion  of  an  eastern  room  —  and  it  was  wonderful 
to  see  what  a  low  note  she  always  managed  hi  a  house, 
what  quiet  service,  what  trim  maids,  what  a  subduing 
of  necessary  light  —  I  seemed  to  miss  something  I  had 
expected  to  see. 

"Oh,"  I  said,  "where's  aunt  Rule?" 

"She  went  to-day,"  Mildred  told  me,  "back  to  the 
West." 

"And  where's  cousin  Thomas  ?  You  haven't  spoken 
about  him  at  all." 

"Haven't  I?"  said  Mildred.  She  was  fanning  her- 
self, and  I  noted  the  slenderness  of  her  delicate  wrist, 
and  interrupted  her  reply  to  ask :  — 

"Aren't  you  well  ?    You're  awfully  thin." 

Oh,  yes,  she  was  well,  she  told  me.  The  heat  had 
rather  worn  on  her.  Besides,  there'd  been  a  good  deal 
of  social  life. 

"Social  life!"  I  repeated.  How  far  it  seemed,  after 
my  knocking  round  among  men  and  then  the  intimate 
solitudes  of  the  sea  to  this  little  world  of  eating  food  in 
special  clothes.  "I  should  think  summer  was  the  time 
to  escape  that  sort  of  thing." 

"There  are  very  good  people  down  here,"  she  said, 
still  wearily.  "I've  made  you  some  valuable  friends." 


274  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"Well/'  said  I,  " where's  cousin  Thomas?" 

"He's  here." 

"Here,  at  the  Port?" 

"At  the  Hillsdale  House.  Though  he  had  been 
staying  with  us  a  good  deal,  till  aunt  Rule  went." 

"Till  to-day."  I  must  have  said  it  satirically,  for 
I  felt  it  so. 

"He's  left  his  car  here,"  she  threw  in,  and  now  she 
did  not  look  at  me. 

"Had  it  here  all  summer?" 

"Yes." 

"  Leave  it  here  for  you  to  use  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"Chauffeur  goes  with  it,  I  suppose." 

"Of  course,"  said  Mildred,  plucking  up  a  tone  more 
matter  of  fact.  "I  can't  run  a  car.  I  knew  you 
couldn't,  either." 

"No,"  I  said,  "certainly  I  couldn't."  And  the  devil 
put  it  into  my  mind  to  add,  "Certainly  not  cousin 
Thomas's  car."  I  was  not  so  touchy  as  to  balk  at  any 
man  who  might  have  loved  my  wife ;  of  cousin  Thomas 
with  his  persistencies  I  did  have  a  perennial  distrust. 

But  that  I  did  not  say,  and  while  we  waited  for  a 
course  unduly  delayed,  if  I  could  judge  from  the  slight 
deepening  of  the  new  line  between  Mildred's  brows, 
I  watched  her  because  I  felt  I  had  to.  I  could  do  it 
with  no  challenge  of  blush  or  answering  gleam  from  her. 
She  was  tired,  and  there  was,  in  meeting  me,  some 
slight  strain.  She  was  changed.  Was  it  to  my  outer 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  275 

or  my  inner  eyes  ?  I  might  even  have  called  her  hag- 
gard, if  the  line  of  her  cheek  and  chin  had  not  charmed 
the  eye  to  its  deception,  the  low-toned  coloring  and  the 
lovely  hollows  with  their  soft,  pathetic  shadows  had  not 
offered  their  own  beguiling. 

"I've  brought  you  some  aqua  marines,"  I  said. 
"And  some  jade.  I'm  going  to  hang  you  all  over  with 
jewels  like  a  squaw." 

A  faint  rose  came  into  her  cheeks  and  she  gave  me 
a  little,  smiling  nod.  And  presently,  when  we  left  the 
table,  I  put  my  arm  again  about  her,  and  asked  her  if 
she  wouldn't  come  up  and  show  me  where  she  meant 
me  to  write.  She  agreed,  perhaps  rather  too  patiently, 
and  we  went  up  to  a  long,  low  western  room  where  the 
sun  came  sweetly  through  diamond  panes.  And  after 
we  had  talked  a  little  about  my  voyage  and  I  had 
opened  my  trunk,  I  hung  all  the  trinkets  about  her 
neck  as  I  had  foretold,  and  she  sat  down  to  take  them 
off  again  for  closer  seeing,  and  fingered  them  in  the  light 
and  let  it  run  through  them  in  little  rivers.  Her  face 
lighted  too,  to  match  them,  and  I  had  to  say  to  her:  — 

"You're  an  awfully  pretty  woman.  Anybody  ever 
tell  you  so?" 

She  laughed,  and  I  laughed,  and  we  seemed  to  be 
only  a  short  way  from  that  courting  time  gone  by; 
only  I  was  conscious  that  a  part  of  me  sat  there  dis- 
passionately unmoved,  while  another  part  of  me  paid 
compliments  to  reward  the  pretty  creature  who  had 
put  on  her  poetic  gown  to  please  me. 


276  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"Come,  talk,"  I  said.  "We  haven't  had  a  good  old 
gossip  for  a  long  time.  Sit  here."  .' 

I  wheeled  up  a  big  chintz  chair  to  the  window  and 
myself  stretched  out  on  a  divan  there.  The  steamer 
was  still  beating  in  my  blood  and  I  carried  in  my 
memory  —  in  my  body,  too,  I  felt  —  the  strong  savor 
of  the  sea.  I  felt  a  careless  certainty  of  my  own 
strength.  We  all  know  what  that  is  when  we  have  come 
back  from  the  farther  intimacies  of  the  earth  and  air. 
I  felt  equal  to  throwing  the  light  burden  of  my  woman 
on  my  shoulder  and  taking  her  with  me,  if  she  wouldn't 
choose  to  go,  where  I  at  last  saw  it  was  best  we  should 
be.  For  since  the  night  when  Ellen  Tracy  and  I  had 
talked  of  my  work,  I  knew  what  must  befall  it.  There 
must  be  no  more  stories  of  Little  Italy.  I  must  write 
out  of  my  deepest  integrity,  though  I  starved  to  do  it, 
and  it  would  be  to  my  wife's  honor  if  she  starved  with 
me.  There  was  the  child :  he  should  be  brought  up 
to  coarse,  clean  tasks,  even  though  he  lost  dancing  school 
with  others'  sons  well  placed.  Thinking  of  that,  I 
laughed  and  Mildred  lifted  her  brows  inquiringly. 

"I  was  thinking,"  I  said,  "that  young  Egerton  will 
probably  have  to  be  an  expressman  or  a  plumber." 

She  let  the  stones  ripple  through  her  hands  and  asked 
me  idly,  as  knowing  it  was  a  part  of  the  chaff  I  affected 
when  I  was  ill  at  ease  with  her:  — 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that  ?" 

It  was  a  poor  time  to  pelt  her  with  discontents,  now 
I  had  just  come  home;  but  I  was  at  my  bravest, 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  277 

she  was  at  her  prettiest,  and  I  felt  she  could  under- 
stand. 

"Mildred,"  I  said,  "I've  been  thinking  a  lot  of 
things." 

"When?"  she  asked,  so  appositely  that  I  was 
comically  brought  up  with  my  own  haste. 

Last  night,  it  had  all  been  since  last  night.  But  that 
I  couldn't  stay  to  answer. 

"Do  you  know,"  said  I,  "I'm  an  awful  fake?" 

She  shook  her  head  slightly.  Her  eyes  gathered 
a  shade  of  distaste. 

"My  stories,"  said  I,  "aren't  worth  the  paper  they're 
written  on." 

"You  get  better  prices,"  said  she,  instantly,  "than 
all  but  three  men  in  this  country.  I  know,  for  one  of 
the  firm  was  on  from  New  York,  dining  here,  and  he 
told  me." 

I  couldn't  stop  to  fight  that  stuffed  image  of  an  argu- 
ment. I  rushed  on  pell-mell,  sure  I  saw  before  me  the 
gleam  of  the  path  I  had  never  yet  traced  quite  clearly. 

"I've  got  to  work  at  a  different  sort  of  thing.  Maybe 
I  can't  sell  anything  at  all.  Maybe  I  can't  even  work 
without  sitting  on  the  eggs  till  they're  addled,  I'm  so 
stale.  No,  they're  so  stale  and  I'm  such  an  old,  old 
hen.  But  no  more  pot-boiling,  no  more  fakes." 

The  look  in  her  face,  which  I  sought  honestly,  seemed 
to  be  of  an  unfeigned  annoyance.  "Here,"  it  said, 
"are  you  when  everything  has  been  perfectly  clear  for 
two  months,  muddying  up  the  stream." 


278  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

I  tried  another  tack.  Because  I  felt  it  all  so  keenly, 
this  new-discovered  path,  because  an  almost  awful 
earnestness  was  on  me  to  take  the  road  now  I  saw  it, 
I  said  chaffingly:  — 

"  Mildred,  don't  you  want  me  to  be  a  great  man  ?" 

"Yes,"  she  said  without  hesitation.  "Have  you 
found  some  other  opening  in  England  ?  You  thought 
you  would. " 

"Well,  you  know,"  said  I,  in  a  foolish,  pedagogical 
fashion,  "the  great  men  don't  inherit  this  earth.  They 
inherit  another.  They  don't  have  houses  and  lands 
and  limousines  "  —  at  that  instant,  as  if  it  were  a  play 
and  the  sound  came  appositely,  I  heard  a  motor  whirl- 
ing out  of  the  yard.  "What's  that  ?"  I  asked. 

"It's  cousin  Tom's  car.  It's  going  to  meet  him  at 
the  train." 

"Does  he  keep  it  here?"  I  interrupted  my  flow  of 
idealism  to  ask,  with  a  childish  annoyance  of  which 
I  was  ashamed. 

"Oh,  yes.  There's  so  much  room,"  she  answered 
instantly. 

I  went  on,  but  the  wind  of  my  intent  had  died,  and 
my  sails  dropped  dolorously. 

"I  don't  know  whether  I  can  ever  do  anything  very 
good  or  not.  I  don't  know  whether  it's  in  me.  But 
I've  got  to  try." 

Her  forehead  was  a  labyrinth  of  lines.  I  thought 
immediately  she  must  have  had  anxieties  while  I  was 
gone,  the  fair  map  of  her  face  had  changed  so  grievously, 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  279 

even  if  so  subtly.  I  hurried  on  now :  for  if  compunc- 
tion came  into  it,  I  was  lost,  and  could  never  make  my 
run  at  all. 

"Mildred,"  said  I,  "we've  got  to  live  on  less." 

It  was  a  shock,  I  saw,  but  she  met  it  steadily. 

"How  much  less?"  she  asked. 

"I  don't  know.  It's  got  to  be  a  different  scale 
altogether." 

"Have  you  lost  money?"  she  inquired.  The  deli- 
cate pink  my  first  facer  had  brought  was  augmented 
by  a  shade. 

"No,  no.  I  shall  have  quite  a  pocketful.  I've 
come  home  with  all  my  wages,  like  a  good  boy.  But 
after  this,  I  want  to  live  simply.  I  want  to  get  up  in 
the  morning  without  feeling  I've  got  to  earn  just  so 
much  money  before  night." 

"I  thought  all  men  felt  that,"  said  she,  with  an  emi- 
nent common  sense.  "I  thought  they  had  to." 

"So  they  do.  So  do  I  have  to ;  but  I  want  to  strike 
on  luxuries.  Don't  you  see?" 

"People  will  say  you're  not  doing  as  well.  They'll 
think  you're  a  back  number.  You've  said  that  your- 
self." 

So  I  had.  I  was  always  forecasting  the  moment 
when  my  miserable  little  fictions  would  pall  on  a  public 
waiting  to  get  something  real  from  the  new  giants  sure 
to  be  born. 

"I  don't  care  what  they  say,"  I  threw  out,  in  terms 
of  an  old  futility.  I  had  a  sudden  vision  of  the  sacri- 


280  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

fices  men  had  made  to  write  what  they  would,  paint 
what  they  would,  how  they  had  slept  without  knowing 
they  had  slept  at  all,  because  waking  vision  pressed  so 
hard  upon  sleep  and  sleep  gave  way  to  vision,  how  they 
had  lived  upon  pulse  and  water.  "  Mildred,"  I  said, 
and  I  felt  my  throat  choking  up,  "  Mildred,  it's  an 
awful  stunt.  It's  a  big,  brave  deed.  You  do  it  with 
me." 

"What  do  you  mean  to  do?"  she  asked,  and  the 
lines  between  her  brows  tightened  themselves  by  a 
shade,  and  her  eyes  besought  me  not  to  withhold  the 
worst. 

"I  want  to  write  one  line,"  I  said,  out  of  the  bathos 
of  my  belated  dreams,  "  just  one  line  that's  good  enough 
to  live." 

"Why  can't  you  sit  down  in  your  chair  in  your  com- 
fortable study  and  write  it?"  she  asked  practically. 

"The  study  costs  too  much,"  I  said.  "The  whole 
outfit  costs  too  much.  When  I  sit  in  that  study  I  know 
the  expensive  cook  downstairs  is  making  expensive 
entrees  I've  got  to  pay  for.  And  you  can't  write  undy- 
ing lines  with  that  kind  of  a  whip  held  over  you." 

Mildred  fished  up  a  neat  illustration  from  her  school 
days. 

"Doctor  Johnson,"  said  she,  "wrote  'Rasselas'  to 
pay  the  expenses  of  his  mother's  funeral." 

"Did  he?"  I  retorted  flippantly,  out  of  the  passion 
of  my  desire.  "Well,  did  you  ever  read  'Rasselas '  ?" 

"I  don't  believe  anybody  could  carry  on  a  house  like 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  281 

ours  any  more  economically  than  I  have  done  it," 
she  said. 

"I  know  it,  dear,"  I  made  haste  to  own.  "You're 
a  wonder.  That's  the  point.  It's  too  big  a  house.  We 
must  live  in  a  smaller  one." 

She  looked  suddenly  so  full  of  extreme  misery  of  a 
controlled  sort,  that  I  was  bitterly  sorry  for  her,  and 
wondered  if  the  undying  line  ought  really  to  be  bought 
at  such  a  price.  She  spoke,  and  the  tone  seemed  to 
bite  me. 

"Do  you  mean,"  she  said,  "that  we're  to  live  on  a 
street  like  —  like  the  street  where  you  were  when  I 
first  knew  you?" 

"No,  no,"  I  told  her  eagerly.  "I'd  thought  we  might 
go  into  a  suburb." 

"And  live  among  people  that  have  baby  carriages 
standing  in  the  front  hall  ?" 

Her  tone  told  me  that  this  was  the  acme  of  squalor. 

"Egerton  won't  need  a  carriage  much  longer,"  I 
blundered  on  in  my  poor  armor  of  facetiousness.  "So 
we  needn't  have  a  carriage  in  our  hall." 

Mildred  looked  then  from  the  window  at  the  lovely, 
wide  prospect  with  the  line  of  sea  for  its  objective. 
Her  face  hardened  like  a  fine  mask. 

"I  think,"  she  said,  "you  must  be  crazy." 

Perhaps  I  was ;  but  of  this  madness  of  creative  fervor 
had  come  certain  things  in  the  world  by  which  alone 
the  world  has  lived.  "Do  you  expect  me,"  she  asked, 
"to  keep  a  servant  ?" 


282  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"Yes,  oh,  yes, "  I  assured  her  out  of  my  humility  at 
having  made  her  suffer.  "I  should  think  we  might 
have  two.  And  there'd  be  a  vegetable  garden,  and  I'd 
work  in  it." 

This  last  was  a  tinsel  touch,  but  my  idyl  needed  it 
only  to  strike  her  to  the  soul.  She  looked  down  at  her 
delicate  hands,  holding  the  forgotten  gems.  The  light 
of  day  lay  on  her  rosy,  glistening  nails.  Those  hands 
seemed  to  me  the  frailest  things  and  yet  the  most 
invincible.  A  man  might  have  to  spend  his  soul  to 
keep  them  white.  A  mad  fancy  came  into  my  mind 
that  perhaps  such  hands  were  whitened  by  men's  blood, 
and  the  slender  fingers  were  strong  enough  to  wring 
the  heart  they  held  and  squeeze  out  more  and  more. 

If  marriage,  the  living  together  in  an  iron  bond, 
teaches  us  anything,  it  is  that  there  is  a  decent  control 
which  must  be  snatched  at  as  soon  as  certain  danger 
signals  fly.  Mildred  had  on  her  armor  now  of  gentle 
speech  and  a  composed  face,  and  I,  too,  got  a  firmer 
grip. 

"I  might  as  well  tell  you,"  she  said,  in  that  mastered 
voice,  "that  I  never  shall  do  it.  Never." 

"You  won't  go  with  me  into  my  suburban  pram- 
infested  villa?"  I  asked,  from  my  foolish  last  resort  of 
gayety. 

"No." 

"Suppose  I  go  ?  "  This  was  in  idle  rallying.  "Sup- 
pose I  take  Egerton  ?  " 

"I  should  keep  up  the  house,"  she  replied  instantly. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  283 

"I  shall  never  leave  you  actually.  People  could  think 
you  had  gone  into  the  country  to  write." 

"How  could  you  keep  up  the  house?"  was  my  in- 
voluntary inner  comment  on  this.  "How  could  you 
keep  it  unless  I  kept  it  for  you  ?" 

But  this  I  could  not  ask  her.  I  got  up  and  went  to 
her  in  a  contrite  haste. 

"Never  mind,  old  darling,"  I  said.  "We'll  talk  of  it 
again." 

"No, "  said  she  firmly,  and  she  gave  me  her  cheek,  not 
grudgingly,  but  as  if  it  were  a  fair,  bloom-covered  tract 
I  had  purchased.  "I  shan't  talk  about  it  again.  I've 
said  all  I  have  to  say." 

A  magnificent  car  came  up  the  drive,  and  looking 
at  it  absently,  my  hand  still  on  her  shoulder  in  a  caress 
the  shoulder  was  too  patient  to  shake  off,  I  saw  cousin 
Thomas  sitting  in  it,  smaller  than  ever  in  his  summer 
clothes  and  a  large  and  doubtless  invaluable  panama. 
He  seemed,  looking  down  upon  him  as  I  did,  to  have 
shrunken  somehow.  I  gave  him  a  robust,  "Halloo!" 
conscious  of  all  the  ways  I  had  of  disappointing  Mildred 
and  determining  that  coolness  to  cousin  Thomas  should 
not  make  one  of  them  this  time.  Though  he  glanced 
at  me,  he  made  no  response  in  kind,  but  left  the  car 
and  came  up  the  stairs.  He  was  the  same  little  terrier 
of  a  man,  but  worn,  inconceivably  older. 

"Thought  I'd  come  in  and  pass  the  time  o'  day,"  he 
jerked  at  me,  and  I  shook  hands  with  him  and  asked 
him  if  the  summer'd  done  well  by  him.  But  he  had 


284  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

no  special  thing  to  say  and  seemed,  his  cordial  dues 
over,  bent  on  getting  off;  in  a  moment  more  he  was 
spinning  away  again  down  the  drive. 

"  Cousin  Thomas  doesn't  look  very  fit/'  I  said  to 
Mildred ;  but  she  seemed  not  to  have  noticed  him. 

" Shall  we  go  down  to  the  shore?"  she  asked  me. 
"We  always  go  about  this  time." 

"Egerton?" 

"Yes,  and  nurse." 

Of  course  I'd  go  down  to  the  shore,  for  a  casual 
glimpse  of  my  old  friend  the  sea  who  had  just  inducted 
me  into  such  strange  rebelliousness.  But  Mildred,  as 
she  went  with  me,  seemed  relieved  to  change  our  meet- 
ing ground.  My  blood,  too,  had  cooled.  I  didn't 
seem  to  myself  any  more  a  fellow  demanding  great 
things  of  life,  but  a  fellow  who  didn't  know  how  to  use 
what  he  had. 

XXVIII 

MY  firm  had  sent  forme  to  go  on  to  New  York,  and  had 
generously  told  me  that  what  I  had  done  had  pleased  them. 
More  than  that,  they  offered  me  another  plum.  Some 
disturbance  was  beginning  in  Eastern  Europe.  Did 
I  want  to  run  over  there  as  special  correspondent  ?  I 
hesitated,  and  petitioned  for  delay.  Then,  as  this 
admitted  no  tarrying,  did  I  want  to  take  a  year's  work 
at  least  in  Africa  ?  Might  I  think  of  it  ?  Oh  yes,  for 
a  fortnight.  They  wanted  to  assure  me  again  that 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  285 

they  valued  my  services  deeply  and  would  meet  my 
wishes  in  every  possible  way. 

I  went  back  to  Boston  but  not  immediately  to  the 
Port.  Instead,  I  walked  into  the  empty  house  on 
Osborne  Street,  threw  open  windows  and  invited 
light  and  dust  into  its  obscurity.  I  went  to  my  study 
last,  and  when  I  had  let  the  air  in  and  waked  it  from 
sleep  to  what  I  felt  was  a  welcoming  response  to  me,  I 
sat  down  by  my  desk  to  think  out  my  life.  Was  I  a 
blatant  egotist  because  I  was  regarding  my  life  as  an 
entity,  as  a  man  might  look  upon  the  picture  or  book 
he  had  not  yet  finished,  and  that  I  felt  it  was  important 
that  it  should  be  finished  according  to  what  might 
be  the  first  design  ?  Had  I  within  me  the  seeds  of  that 
great  desire  which  springs  up  in  some  form  of  the 
created  thing?  And  how  far  could  I  cherish  that? 
what  could  I  draw  from  the  big  reservoir,  to  pay  it  back 
in  my  accomplished  deed?  I  knew  very  well  that  I 
was  a  poor  citizen.  I  was  not  active  in  municipal 
matters,  nor  was  I  always  conversant  of  what  the 
v/orld  was  doing.  It  was  true  that  I  had  just  been  told 
I  had  done  brilliant  work  in  England ;  but  that  was 
because  something  had  waked  me,  I  knew,  perhaps 
England's  inherited  illustriousness,  and  I  had  really 
looked  upon  things  well  worth  my  reverence.  But 
there  is  no  doubt  that,  if  I  had  a  talent,  even  if  I  had 
none  for  verse,  it  was  a  talent  for  writing  out  the  lives 
of  individual  men  and  women,  a  little  talent,  perhaps 
a  serviceable  one.  That  was  the  poor,  tiny  talent  I  was. 


286  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

thinking  about  now,  planning  for  its  future,  as  I  planned 
for  my  son.  Neither  of  them  might  justify  so  much 
consideration,  but  I  was  fond  of  them.  They  seemed 
tremendously  important  to  me.  And  as  I  should  not 
sacrifice  my  son  for  my  talent,  I  began  to  think  I  should 
not  sacrifice  my  talent  for  my  son :  that  is,  if  it  meant 
buying  more  expensive  meats  for  him  than  a  son  of 
mine  had  any  right  to  eat,  when  he  should  come  to  the 
carnivorous  stage.  I  was  sick  of  the  whole  show,  as 
Johnnie  McCann  was  wont  to  say  when  he  abandoned 
his  grip  on  the  life  line  the  Powers  hold  out  to  us.  I 
didn't  like  the  system  of  things.  It  seemed  to  me  now, 
as  to  Blake,  a  mean  age  given  up  to  ways  of  living 
conveniently,  a  time  of  little  things.  There  was  no 
place  for  a  man  who  sat  down  to  write  what  was  honestly 
in  him  without  reference  to  that  banal  huckster,  the 
selling  list :  unless  indeed  his  bread  was  bought  for  him 
beforehand.  What  I  had  told  Ellen  Tracy  was  true: 
I  had  got  my  popularity  and  my  prices  because  I  was 
a  muddleheaded  sentimentalist.  I  "had  it  come  out 
well."  The  doctor  who  came  home  from  clinic  after 
letting  blood,  could  read  one  of  my  stories  and  go  off 
into  his  well-earned  sleep  with  a  fatuous  credulity  that 
perhaps  the  world  was  doing  very  decently  after  all. 
And  it  wasn't  that  I  didn't  believe  the  world  was  doing 
excellently.  I  believed  it  was,  in  the  large.  I  be- 
lieved there  was  God,  and  that  He  knew  what  He  was 
about.  But  I  saw  the  immediate  struggle  was  grim  and 
awful,  and  I  wanted  to  be  able  to  paint  it  so,  if  I  minded, 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  287 

without  being  told  realism  in  my  form  wasn't  "maga- 
zinable.  Hadn't  I  some  more  of  my  purely  idealistic 
sketches?"  And  if  it  hadn't  been  for  that  carnival 
of  cookery  in  the  kitchen  and  roses  all  over  the  house 
and  the  general  embroidery  of  life,  I  should  have  replied, 
No,  I  hadn't  an  idealistic  page,  and  the  page  I  had 
written  was  exactly  what  I  meant  to  write  at  that 
moment.  Wasn't  there  some  limbo,  my  hot  soul  in- 
quired of  itself,  where  a  man  might  write  out  what  was 
in  him  and  patiently  put  it  in  a  book  to  be  read  or  not 
read,  as  destiny  decides  ?  I  was  dotty  that  night,  as 
Johnnie  again  would  say.  I  thought  of  the  great  im- 
mortalities straining  to  be  born,  and  nobody  striving 
to  snatch  them  out  of  their  matrix :  the  poem  waiting 
in  the  stillnesses,  the  pictures  painted  invisible  for  us 
to  call  them  out  when  we  had  purified  our  sight.  And 
how  could  we  purify  it?  Why,  by  ceasing  to  eat  fat 
dinners  and  to  pursue  the  blatant  littlenesses  of  the  day. 
And  there  at  my  study  table  I  went  mad  all  over  again, 
as  I  had  on  board  ship,  and  resolved  that  I,  at  least, 
would  get  out  of  the  mMee  and  that  my  wife  and  son 
should  go  with  me.  Exalted  because  I  had  resolved 
it  and  Mildred  was  not  there  to  say  me  nay,  I  took  up 
the  little  gray  volume  of  Blake's  drama,  and  read  it 
through.  Ah,  here  was  work.  This  was  written  as 
the  man's  integrity  would  have  it,  and  with  the  full 
authoritative  sound  of  one  who  knew  the  genesis  of 
verse.  He  could  tell  you  what  other  hands  had  struck 
the  chords  to  such  measures,  as  a  composer  takes  a 


288  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

foregoing  masterpiece  and  improvises,  though  his  own 
theme  is  still  his  own.  I  wondered  if  the  world  knew 
just  how  important  this  business  of  the  poet  is.  Here 
they  were  in  their  market-place,  everybody  buying 
and  selling,  the  strident  clamor  of  it  drowning  out  the 
small,  low  pipe  of  the  man  who  can  only  sing.  The 
poet  couldn't  invent  appliances  to  make  the  wheels 
go  faster.  He  could  only  make  verse,  and  it  seemed 
to  me  that  when  it  was  verse  like  Blake's  there' d  better 
be  silence  to  hear  it.  There'd  better  be  long  hours, 
not  at  the  fag  end  of  the  maltreated  day  when  nobody 
wanted  anything  but  a  literary  anodyne,  but  hours 
when  the  best  within  us  came  to  the  poet  and  besought 
his  page  to  sing.  And  then  I  bethought  me  suddenly 
of  my  novel :  it  was  because  I  had  thought  first  of 
Ellen  Tracy.  I  often  had  these  unsummoned  fancies 
about  her,  as  if  she  came  into  the  room.  I  pulled  the 
novel  out  of  the  little  wooden  chest  I  had  bought  for 
it  before  I  went  away,  and  where  it  had  stayed  locked 
as  in  a  chamber  of  its  own.  I  looked  at  it  with  an 
uncomprehending  eye.  Was  it  good  stuff  ?  I  couldn't 
tell.  It  was  certainly  " queer,"  if  to  be  queer  is  not  to 
fit  any  of  the  recognized  rules.  So  I  put  it  away  again, 
and  knew  suddenly  I  wanted  to  talk  with  Blake.  I 
telephoned  the  Thief  and  found  he  had  just  gone  out. 
So  I  left  a  message  for  him  that  if  he  came  in  he  was 
to  dine  with  me  at  a  place  we  knew.  Otherwise  I 
begged  he'd  come  round  in  the  evening,  or  I'd  go  to 
him,  anywhere  he  said. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  289 

About  eight  o'clock  he  came,  and  I  ran  down  to  open 
the  door  to  him.  There  he  was,  the  tall,  distinguished 
figure  beginning  to  stoop  a  little  now,  not  because  he 
was  yet  even  in  the  prime  of  life,  but  because  he  carried 
a  complexity  of  burdens.  He  was  thinner  in  the  face, 
too;  lines  had  graven  themselves  there,  the  indubitable 
witnesses  of  disappointment  and  sad  revery.  The  look 
of  the  happy  bridegroom  he  had  worn  when  he  went 
off  in  his  new  clothes  to  woo  Ellen  Tracy  had  settled 
into  a  subdued  acquiescence.  It  was  patent  that  Ellen 
Tracy  would  have  none  of  him.  He  had  accepted  his 
defeat.  Henceforth  the  world  was  not  for  him;  but 
I  could  well  believe  those  eyes  would  light  up  their 
cavernous  solitudes  if  you  talked  to  him  about  poetry. 
And  this  I  at  once  began  to  do,  eagerly,  for  I  was  an- 
hungered to  have  him,  from  his  land  of  verse  attained, 
blow  for  me  the  horn  of  old  desire.  We  had  gone  at 
once  up  to  my  study,  and  I,  having  conjured  up  some 
ice,  set  before  him  a  big  pitcher  of  the  only  drink  his 
temperance  craved.  For  a  moment  after  he  sat  down 
he  seemed  to  forget  me;  but  he  recalled  himself, 
glanced  about  him,  and  apparently  approved  the 
dignified  quiet  of  the  room. 

"This  is  good,"  he  said.  "You do  your  work  here?" 
"Yes,"  I  told  him,  feeling  exceedingly  shamefaced 
over  it  when  I  remembered  his  only  solitude  was  the  chaos 
of  his  tawdry  lodging-house.  I  was  cut  off  from  the 
noises  below,  if  there  ever  were  any,  I  added,  by  the 
double  door.  My  wife  had  so  arranged  it. 


290  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"Ah,"  said  he,  reflectively.  "You're  a  fortunate 
fellow,  Redfield." 

I  owned  dutifully  that  I  was,  though  at  that  moment 
I  was  inwardly  seething  in  discontent. 

"I  shall  never  attain  any  kind  of  comfort,  any  decent 
solitude/'  he  said.  Then  he  voiced  my  answering 
thought,  continuing,  "I  earn  enough,  but  I  don't 
know  how  to  spend  it.  I  couldn't  plan  a  thing  like  this. 
Ah,  well!" 

Mary  had  told  me  once  that  he  had  in  the  country 
antipathetic  relations  to  whom  he  was  patiently  faithful. 
Most  of  his  money  went  to  them.  How  had  he  thought 
he  could  take  home  to  his  lodging-house  a  bird  of  para- 
dise like  Ellen  Tracy  ?  But  in  the  dawn  of  a  wild  hope 
everything  lies  in  light. 

"You  know  how  to  get  along  with  the  earth,"  he 
said,  "with  things  as  they  are.  You've  succeeded." 

There  was  no  bitterness  in  this.  He  wasn't  lay- 
ing to  his  soul  the  unction  that,  because  he  hadn't 
thriven,  he  was  the  better  man.  He  knew  as  well  as  I 
that  in  these  days  of  bruiting  of  values  not  only  does 
the  little  man  creep  into  place  but  the  great  man  does 
sometimes  get  his  hire.  My  mind,  as  he  spoke,  rapidly 
ran  over  the  inventory  of  what  I  had.  I  lived  softly, 
I  accepted  an  acquaintance  with  the  world  which  also 
lived  softly.  I  might  lie  under,  if  I  would,  that  most 
insidious  mould  and  canker,  the  sense  of  privilege. 
Yet  I  was  eaten  up  and  spurred  and  lashed  by  a  dis- 
content such  as  I  had  never  imagined.  I  felt  I  had 
missed  the  way. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  291 

"I  couldn't  do  it,"  said  Blake.  "I  don't  know  how. 
I  couldn't  marry.  She'd  only  have  been  miserable. 
It's  just  as  well." 

His  head  sank  forward  on  his  breast  in  the  acquies- 
cence of  age,  and  his  sad  eyes  went  dreaming  on  in  antici- 
pation of  the  years  without  her.  I  understood  what 
was  within  him:  the  perfectly  well  knowing  mind  that 
told  him  he  could  not  play  the  game  as  lesser  men  of 
us  played  it,  and  yet  the  heart  that  ached  for  her.  But 
he  knew  and  I  knew  that  if  Ellen  Tracy  had  loved  him 
he  would  not  have  needed  to  play  the  game  of  place 
and  privilege.  She  was  so  understanding  in  fine,  still 
ways  that  she  would  have  created  for  him  a  paradise 
of  his  own.  That  was  what  made  the  loss  of  her  a 
sharp  regret. 

"Blake,"  I  said,  "I  want  to  talk  about  poetry." 

He  woke  at  once. 

"Been  writing?"  he  asked. 

No,  I  hadn't  been  writing.  I'd  been  earning  food. 
This  last  I  didn't  tell  him. 

"But  it  seems  to  me,"  I  said,  "I've  got  to  do  some- 
thing or  die.  I've  gone  the  wrong  road." 

He  was  looking  at  me  with  interest. 

"So,"  said  he,  "you  feel  it,  too." 

Had  he  felt  it  for  me?  My  mouth  was  dry  as  I 
realized  how  near  I  had  come  to  losing  him,  how  I 
might  have  him  yet,  the  friendly  judgment,  the  com- 
munity of  equal  hopes.  Had  he  seen  me  earning 
money  out  of  my  infernal  botches  and  thought  that 


292  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

was  my  high  water  mark  of  the  things  I  judged  it 
righteous  to  do  ?  At  least  he  should  know  what  things 
I  saw  to  be  most  excellent. 

"I'm  not  like  you,"  I  said  stupidly.  "Certain 
things  aren't  important  to  me.  First  editions  aren't. 
But  poetry  is,  Blake,  poetry  is.  And,  by  God,  I  be- 
lieve I  might  have  had  it." 

He  was  broad  awake  to  me. 

"Your  Epithalamium  is  immortal,"  he  said.  "It's 
already  immortal.  Nobody  can  shake  it." 

"I  don't  care  for  that,"  I  told  him. 

He  opened  his  eyes  at  me. 

"You  don't  care  for  it,   man?      Then  you're  an 


ass." 


But  I  couldn't  follow  that  road.  It  wasn't  a  poem  to 
me.  It  was  a  vision  of  my  woman- worship,  and  the 
world  had  been  invited  to  look  at  my  vision  and  I  had 
been  given  money  for  it. 

"I  can't  tell  you  what  I  mean,"  I  said.  "But  I  wish 
I  had  lived  simply  and  given  myself  a  chance  to  put 
down  the  things  that  came  to  me.  They  came  at 
first ;  and  then,  I  suppose  because  I  was  too  busy  earn- 
ing money,  they  stopped  coming." 

"It  is  queer,"  he  said  meditatively,  as  if  struck  anew 
by  the  justice  of  the  gods.  "The  old  saws  are  true. 
It  does  seem  as  if  you  couldn't  have  both  things.  You 
can't  have  the  earth  and  immortal  life." 

To  hear  his  confirmation  made  me  wilder  than  ever 
in  my  ecstasy. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  293 

"I've  got  to  be  free,  Blake/'  I  said,  "free  to  see  what's 


in  me." 


"But  you  can't  be  free,"  he  said,  looking  at  me  with 
a  shrewd  practicality  that  came  curiously  from  him. 
"You  couldn't  leave  this."  He  glanced  now  about 
the  room  comprehensively,  as  if  it  indicated  the  house. 
"All  this  means  a  pile  of  money.  You  couldn't  reduce 
your  scale." 

"Why  couldn't  I  ? "  I  retorted.     "Try  me." 

He  nodded.     He  was  thoughtful. 

"Yes,  you  could,"  he  said,  "if  you  were  both  agreed. 
But  you'd  have  to  be  of  the  same  mind." 

At  that  moment,  even  in  the  face  of  Mildred's  re- 
fusal to  go  my  way,  I  felt,  if  I  could  ask  her  once  more, 
she  would  go  with  me  joyously,  "singing  along  the 
road."  As  I  conceived  it  there  in  Blake's  company, 
I  felt  capable  of  eloquence  even,  of  the  winged  words 
that  should  lead  her  also  into  the  land  of  my  heart's 
desire.  For  that  it  was  not  her  heart's  desire  I  did  not 
think.  It  was  so  goodly  a  land,  so  rich  in  sacred  prom- 
ises, I  believed  she  had  only  to  see  the  arras  of  leaves 
waving  on  its  hills,  the  gleaming  of  its  streams,  and  she 
would  choose  to  go. 

"Mildred  may  be  alone  next  year,  anyway,"  I  ex- 
plained. "I'm  going  back  to  consult  her.  It'll  really 
be  as  she  says." 

Then  I  told  him  about  my  offer  to  go  as  special  corre- 
spondent, and  he  listened  gravely  and  nodded  in  assent 
from  time  to  time.  And  I  told  him  rather  shyly,  as  if 


294  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

I  had  been  much  younger  than  he  —  and  indeed  I  was 
very  young  compared  with  his  inheritance  of  that  land 
I  longed  to  enter  —  I  told  him  how  my  tiny  voyage 
had  waked  me,  the  seeing  a  new  people  and  a  foreign 
land.  It  had  stirred  thoughts  and  feelings  in  me,  and 
they  had  beaten  themselves  out  into  lines  of  verse,  and 
I  felt  more  voyaging,  more  hand-to-hand  acquaintance 
with  the  earth  might  prove  me  further. 

"Yes,  go/7  he  said,  as  if  I  were  a  lad  and  he  my 
mentor.  "It'll  make  a  man  of  you." 

I  smiled  rather  grimly ;  but  I  was  not  offended.  So 
I  was  not  a  man  yet,  he  thought,  though  my  first  years 
had  gone.  Well,  he  was  right.  I  was  not.  I  had 
taken  life  as  it  came  to  me,  and  had,  in  a  mild-tempered 
certainty  that  it  knew  more  than  I,  given  what  it 
expected  of  me.  If  I  had  wanted  my  life  to  be  of  one 
complexion  or  another,  I  should  have  decided,  in 
my  own  proper  person,  what  it  was  to  be.  I  fancied 
I  began  to  see  how  the  stupendous  freedom  of  it 
swept  over  us  like  winds  and  nourished  us  like  rain 
and  ripened  us  like  the  sun.  We  were  free  to  choose, 
and  the  One  that  made  the  vastness  of  it,  though  He 
was  hi  the  intimate  atoms,  yet  sat  outside  to  let  us 
choose. 

"I'm  afraid,"  said  I,  haltingly  to  Blake,  "I'm  a  good 
deal  at  the  mercy  of  things." 

He  nodded.  He  understood  perfectly  without  many 
words. 

"Yes,"   he  said.     "I've  been   there.    We  all  are, 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  295 

more  or  less.  But  when  we  begin  to  understand  how 
things  go,  we're  at  their  mercy  less  and  less*" 

"Do  you  think/7  I  was  speaking  to  him  even  implor- 
ingly, as  we  interrogate  our  wise  elders  when  we  are  in 
distressful  doubt,  "  do  you  think  we  can  govern  —  life  ?  " 

He  had  come  broad  awake  out  of  the  sleep  of  his 
genius  which  commonly  kept  him  lulled  to  mortal 
things.  He  was  smiling  at  me,  a  wonderful  smile. 
How  could  Ellen  Tracy  have  resisted  him  ? 

"Don't  you  know  what  it  is  you  have  to  learn ?"  he 
asked.  "It's  the  freedom  of  the  will.  Learn  that, 
and  you're  just  as  light  as  if  you  were  sailing  the  blue 


air." 


I  thought  of  the  ranks  behind  ranks  of  creatures  that 
expected  me  to  do  things.  Mildred  expected  me  to 
earn  money  and  to  go  to  church.  It  was  right  for  me 
to  earn  money  to  keep  my  roof-tree  from  leaking  and 
my  hearthstone  from  stains,  but  not  money  enough 
to  bring  down  snow  from  Everest  and  fruits  from 
Cathay  and  jewels  from  the  mine.  And  it  was  right 
for  me  to  go  to  church,  if  I  found  it  good  for  my  soul 
and  believed  my  Master  God  would  be  pleased  by 
prostrations  or  even  intellectual  essays;  but  not  be- 
cause other  men  went  in  frock  coats  and  top  hats  and 
might  buy  my  books  the  sooner  if  they  passed  the  plate 
to  me.  Then  there  were  the  ranks  of  people  who 
wanted  me  to  write  soporific  tales,  to  make  them  think  it 
a  good  old  world  and  they  needn't  concern  themselves 
so  very  much  about  it,  with  the  humor  that  titillates 


296  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

and  none  of  the  big  ironies  that  might  make  them 
suspect  they  possibly  were  illumined  by  its  play. 
And  there  were  the  editors  who  wanted  me  to  be 
"magazinable,"  and  my  publishers  who  had  fatally 
discovered  just  what  the  public  wanted  of  me  and  were 
prepared  to  serve  that  very  dish  and  no  other.  I  fancy 
I  spoke  rather  querulously,  piteously,  even,  to  Blake,  he 
looked  so  detached,  so  capable,  for  that  reason  at  least, 
of  keeping  his  own  will  free. 

"That  sounds  awfully  well,  but  it  isn't  so.  Things 
push  and  push.  You  might  as  well  tell  me  a  man  that 
works  twelve  hours  a  day  can  go  out  into  the  country 
and  look  at  the  lilacs.  He  can ;  but  if  he  loses  his  job, 
he  starves." 

"That's  it,"  said  Blake.     "He  starves." 

His  eyes  were  bright  with  the  consciousness  of  illim- 
itable reaches.  He  had  seen  them,  the  gallant  walks 
of  paradise,  the  gardens  of  the  soul.  And  his  lips  were 
set  as  if,  like  the  lips  of  a  statue,  they  were  carved  for 
furthest  time. 

"But,"  I  cried,  in  my  futile  chase  of  him  across  these 
plains  of  light  where  he  seemed  to  see  his  way  perfectly 
and  I  was  all  a-dazzle,  "his  wife  and  children  starve." 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Blake,  unmoved,  save  that  his  eyes 
seemed  to  be  seeing  farther  still,  "that's  of  course." 

"Well,"  said  I,  "that  can't  be.  Do  you  think  that 
can  be?  He's  pledged  himself,  hasn't  he?  He's 
given  hostages  to  fortune." 

"It's  the  freedom  of  the  will,"  he  repeated,  as  if 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  297 

from  some  haunting  ecstasy,  "the  freedom  of  the 
will." 

I  got  up  and  lighted  a  cigar.  I  believe  I  swore  a  little. 
If  it  was  this  to  be  a  poet,  I  couldn't  follow  him.  Did 
he  mean  to  tell  me  I  wasn't  pledged  to  my  son  with 
every  fibre  of  the  being  that  had  called  him  forth? 
My  son  was  dear  to  me,  dear  as  were  the  ruddy  drops 
of  my  heart  that  lost  a  beat  or  two  if  he  fell  and  bumped 
his  little  nose.  But  suppose  he  had  not  been  —  for 
I  thought  I  had  seen  fathers  who  regarded  their  off- 
spring incidentally  —  should  I  not  have  been  as  indis- 
solubly  pledged  ?  I  thought  so.  And  Mildred,  too,  was 
pledged  to  him.  We  seemed  to  me,  at  that  point  of 
our  married  life,  vowed,  not  so  much  to  each  other  as 
to  him.  But  Blake  had  done  thinking  of  the  freedom 
of  the  will,  as  he  might  have  done  writing  a  poem,  and 
come  out  from  the  maze  of  it. 

"Have  you  seen  Mary?"  he  asked. 

"No,"  I  reminded  him.  "I've  just  come  home,  you 
know." 

"She's  overworked,"  said  Blake.  He  had  taken  on 
a  look  of  very  human  worry.  "She  has  worked  too 
hard,  too  long,  spent  herself  for  everybody." 

"I  wish  she  could  have  gone  to  Miss  Tracy,"  I  ven- 
tured. 

"Well,  why  couldn't  she?"  said  Blake,  irritably. 
"Mary  was  simply  perverse  there." 

I  couldn't  say  to  him,  Mary  didn't  go  to  Miss  Tracy 
because  you  were  in  love  with  Miss  Tracy.  I  thought 


298  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

him  exceedingly  stupid  not  to  have  seen  that.  I 
thought  I  should  have  read  a  woman's  heart  better  than 
that.  But  had  I  ?  Had  I  read  Ellen  Tracy's  ?  I  was 
to  learn  something  about  that  in  time  to  come. 

Blake  was  looking  at  me  in  an  engaging  candor. 

"Redfield,"  said  he,  "I  wish  there  was  someway  for 
me  to  take  care  of  Mary." 

"There  isn't/'  said  I,  and  then  played  my  best  card, 
"  except  one." 

I  didn't  know  whether  he  heard  me  or  not.  He  was 
glooming  on  about  Mary. 

"She  hasn't  a  cent  ahead.  I  believe  she's  sending 
clothes  now  to  Haley's  brat.  Haley's  lost  his  job." 

I  ventured  a  stroke  I  thought  portentously  clever. 

"She  won't  marry  Haley,  will  she?"  But  it  had  no 
adequate  effect. 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Blake.  He  drained  his  tumbler 
at  a  gulp  and  rose  to  go.  The  other  mood  had  come 
upon  him,  the  vision  of  flower-sprent  fields  and  freedom 
of  the  will  to  roam  in  them,  but  lacking  the  slightest 
capacity  for  telling  you  how  you  were  to  roam  without 
being  a  criminal  or  a  lout.  That  was  why  he  was  a  poet. 
But  my  mind  stretched  itself,  and  took  in  a  deep  breath 
and  permitted  itself  to  wonder  whether  the  poets  that 
were  coming — the  unborn  who  are  to  lighten  our  dark 
in  springs  to  be  —  whether  they  won't  see  the  earth 
as  it  is  and  the  heavens  as  they  are,  and  out  of  the 
completed  vision  of  the  two,  give  us  a  more  infallible 
note  to  get  the  pitch  of.  And  they  are  going  to  be 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  299 

even  greater  poets  than  Blake  who  jumped  the  issue 
he  didn't  find  himself  able  to  explain. 

On  the  doorstep  he  looked  up  at  the  stars  for  a 
moment,  again  forgetting  me.  I  made  no  doubt  he 
was  going  home  to  write  big  things.  But  I  dared  to 
drag  him  back  into  the  earthly  coil. 

" Blake,"  said  I,  and  wondered  how  I  dared,  "I  wish 
you'd  take  care  of  Mary." 

Then  I  shut  the  door  between  us.  I  went  in  to  smoke 
and  meditate.  You  couldn't  smoke  with  much  com- 
fort before  Blake,  knowing  he  thought  it  an  uncleanly 
fashion.  I  was  not  sure  but  I  did,  myself,  but  it  helped 
me  through.  I  sat  there  in  my  bedroom,  thinking, 
thinking  on  into  the  night.  I  could  not  unravel  the 
coil  of  liberty,  the  liberty  of  the  free  creature  to  fulfil 
his  most  righteous  impulses  without  sacrificing  to  the 
gods  of  time  and  change.  And  neither,  I  believed, 
could  Blake.  For  though  he  told  me  his  will  was  free, 
I  perceived  that  it  wasn't  free  to  let  him  leave  the  Thief: 
for  if  he  had  left  it,  not  only  would  he  have  starved, 
which  was  immaterial  to  him,  but  so  would  those 
dismal  relations  in  the  country.  I  was  sorry  I  hadn't 
taunted  him  gently  with  his  sacrifice  to  the  Thief:  yet 
I  knew  what  he  would  have  said.  He  would  have 
evaded  the  direct  issue,  and  without  knowing  he  shirked 
it,  for  he  didn't  even  see  it.  He  would  have  looked 
over  the  valley  of  this  world  to  the  height  of  his  ideal- 
isms beyond.  This  was  what  it  must  be  to  be  a  poet, 
and  seeing  this  world  as  I  did,  I  wondered  if  I  could 


300  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

ever  be  a  poet  at  all.  But  before  I  slept  I  had  written 
a  sonnet,  slapdash,  with  a  free  hand,  because  it  clamored 
to  be  done.  It  was  about  a  woman,  her  hair  streaming 
behind  her  on  the  wings  of  her  going,  so  fast  she  ran. 
She  was  running  into  the  future  to  keep  there  a  beauti- 
ful tryst,  and  the  hair  was  the  hair  of  Ellen  Tracy. 

XXIX 

I  DIDN'T  go  back  to  the  Port  until  the  afternoon, 
for  I  wanted  to  see  Mary,  and  went  round  to  her 
office  to  take  her  to  lunch.  I  found  her  presiding 
over  three  young  acolytes  at  the  typewriter,  herself 
working  a  wondrous  machine  that  ground  out  the 
notes  a  puissant  broker  had  been  speaking  into  it. 
This  was  a  different  Mary  from  the  one  I  had  left; 
she  was  haggard,  worried  about  the  eyes  like  a  creature 
that  has  run  too  hard,  chased  by  some  dog  of  evil 
chance.  She  gave  the  acolytes  a  reprieve,  and  put  on 
her  hat  at  once  to  go  with  me.  Mary's  shabby  clothes  ! 
I  wasn't  in  the  habit  of  noticing  women's  gowns, 
though  I  did  know  Mildred's  were  exquisite.  I  had 
learned  it  through  several  varieties  of  argument,  the 
two  prime  ones  being  that  her  fabrics  were  delicate  as 
smoke  or  young  untarnished  leaves,  and  that  they 
cost  so  much.  This  last  was  actual  demonstration. 
Ellen  Tracy's  clothes  seemed  to  me  like  the  most 
beautiful  plumage.  I  can't  explain  it;  they  simply 
did.  But  Mary,  my  dear  Mary  wore  a  hat  that  even 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  301 

to  me  looked  battered,  and  though  her  soldierly  uni- 
form of  shirt  waist  and  skirt  was  put  on  with  its  old 
exactness,  even  I  could  see  that  it  would  scarce  pass 
muster. 

" Where  shall  we  go?"  I  asked  her.  Would  she 
come  to  the  club  ? 

No,  she  was  quite  firm  about  that.  She  knew  a 
fish  grill  not  far  away  where  we  could  get  the  freshest 
lobster.  I  rather  insisted  on  the  club  because  it 
would  be  quiet;  but  Mary  shrank  from  it  and 
upheld  her  grill,  and  to  that  we  went.  It  was  a 
quaint,  good  little  place  that  did  itself  no  perjury 
in  advertising  everything  as  strictly  fresh.  You 
went  through  the  fish  shop  itself  where  crustaceans 
and  fins  lay  on  immaculate  slabs  ever  being  sluiced, 
and  so  to  a  shaded  room  on  an  alley  where  you 
might  sit  by  a  window  looking  on  a  wall  and  find  your 
brow  cooled  by  the  zephyr  from  electric  fans.  Mary 
was  so  tired  that  she  took  off  her  hat  at  once  and 
hung  it  up,  in  a  business-like  way,  and  I  ordered  the 
luncheon,  a  procession  of  all  the  fish  I  could  compass, 
with  ginger  ale,  the  only  bottled  goods  provided. 
After  that,  I  looked  across  at  Mary  and  found  her 
smiling  at  me,  her  dear,  well-wishing  smile,  as  if  she 
liked  me  very  much. 

"Mary,"  said  I,  "you  won't  marry  Haley,  will  you?" 

She  broke  out  laughing. 

"Mysakes!"  said  Mary.  "Who  told  you  I  wanted 
to  marry  him?" 


302  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"Not  wanted  to,"  I  amended.  "That's  the  trouble 
with  you.  You  don't  want  to  marry  anybody.  Every- 
body wants  to  marry  you.  But  don't  you  marry 
Haley.  You  promise  me." 

She  was  still  laughing,  quite  light-heartedly  indeed, 
and  with  so  total  a  lack  of  embarrassment  that,  if 
Haley  had  been  there,  even  he  would  have  seen  his 
chances  dwindle. 

"What  in  the  world  put  that  into  your  head?" 
she  challenged  me. 

I  was  a  blundering  ass. 

"Blake  was  in  to  see  me  last  night,"  I  said.  "We 
agreed  you'd  do  anything  to  help  a  fellow  out,  and 
we  were  afraid  you'd  marry  Haley.  On  account  of 
the  kid,  you  know." 

I  saw  what  I  had  done.  The  laugh  went  out  of 
her  eyes.  Hurt  pride  came  into  them. 

"Mr.  Blake  has  no  business  to  talk  me  over,"  she 
said. 

And  then  the  clam  broth  came,  and  I  could  only 
weakly  and  contritely  murmur  over  mine:  — 

"O  Mary,  it  isn't  as  you  think.  I  believe  I  said  it, 
anyway.  Blake  said  the  finest  things  of  you,  stunning 
things.  He'd  lay  down  his  life  for  you." 

"He  needn't,"  said  Mary,  frigidly.  "I  don't  want 
any  lives  laid  down."  But  her  cheeks  were  burning. 

"I  came  home  on  the  steamer  with  Miss  Tracy,"  I 
told  her,  and  she  looked  at  me  in  a  quick  new  pain  of 
interest. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  303 

"Then  she's  come,"  said  she,  and  I  said,  without 
much  consideration  of  the  wisdom  of  it,  but  hurt  in 
my  turn  for  Ellen  Tracy:  — 

"  You  don't  like  her." 

"I  do,"  said  Mary.     "I  adore  her." 

"Then  why  do  you  speak  of  her  so  grudgingly? 
Why  won't  you  go  and  live  with  her?" 

Mary  had  no  small  vanities,  no  reserves  ready  to 
defend  her  secrets. 

"I  speak  of  her  as  I  do  because  I  want  her  either  to 
marry  Mr.  Blake  or  stay  out  of  the  country  and  not 
come  back  here  torturing  him.  And  I  won't  live  with 
her  because  she  won't  marry  him  and  I  —  can't  bear 
to  see  her." 

This  last  confession  burst  from  her  by  its  own 
force,  and  I  believed  it  was  an  honest  one.  Mary 
herself  didn't  know  she  was  tortured  by  Ellen  Tracy 
not  because  Blake  couldn't  get  her  but  because  he 
wanted  to. 

"I  don't  believe  you  need  pity  him  so  very  much," 
I  said.  "I  don't  call  him  broken-hearted." 

"Does  he  talk  about  her?" 

The  question  leaped  at  me. 

"No,"  I  owned,  "but  he  does  talk  of  poetry,  and 
he  looks  as  if  he  were  thinking  about  the  things  that 
make  him  write." 

"What  things?"  she  asked,  as  if  she  were  hungry 
to  know  all  that  might  make  her  understand  him 
better  and  lessen  her  pathetic  distance  from  him. 


304  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"Things  outside  this  world,"  I  told  her.  "Things 
Blake  seems  to  know  about  and  nobody  else,  just  at 
present." 

"Did  she  talk  of  him?"  she  asked,  "Miss  Tracy?" 

"She  spoke  of  him.     She's  devoted  to  his  poetry." 

"But  not  to  him,"  she  insisted. 

"No,  Mary,"  I  owned,  "not  in  the  way  you  mean." 

"Then  you  think  she  isn't  in  love  with  him  the 
least  little  mite  and  he'll  get  her  by  and  by?" 

"No,"  I  said.  "I  know  she's  not  in  love  with 
him." 

"Women  change,"  she  persisted,  and  I  answered :  — 

"Not  Ellen  Tracy." 

"How  do  you  know  so  much  about  her?"  Mary 
countered  shrewdly.  "I  should  think  she  was  in  love 
with  you." 

Now  she  said  it  rather  roughly,  rather  brusquely, 
and  meaning  not  a  whit  of  it,  but  it  struck  me  full  in 
the  consciousness  of  what  was  and  might  not  be,  and 
I  seemed  to  lose  my  breath  and  looked  at  her  aghast. 
She  was  eating  her  lobster  and  took  no  note  of  me. 

"No,"  she  said  then,  in  her  own  frank  voice,  "I 
suppose  she  never  will  care  enough.  But  I'm  tired 
-  I'm  tired  of  seeing  him  suffer." 

Mother-weariness  was  in  her  voice,  the  world-old 
yearning  of  the  creature  who  has  brought  life  into 
the  world  and  found  it  so  niggardly  a  place  that  the 
creature  must  go  bare.  I  tried  to  be  wise,  and  if  not 
that,  gentle. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  305 

"Mary,"  I  said,  "did  you  ever  think  he  doesn't 
suffer  as  much  as  you  or  I,  if  we  were  cut  off  from 
what  we  loved?" 

"No,"  she  said  shortly.  "Of  course  he  suffers.  He 
suffers  more." 

"No,"  I  said.  "We've  just  our  aching  hearts,  and 
he's  got  besides  something  that's  like  a  musical  in- 
strument. It's  his  art  of  making  verse.  Don't  you 
know  if  you  could  fiddle,  when  you  were  tired  or  for- 
saken you'd  put  your  fiddle  under  your  chin  and 
play  and  play,  and  maybe  go  to  sleep  playing  ?  That 
would  be  the  only  way  you  could  go  to  sleep  at  all." 

"Yes,"  said  Mary,  dreamily.  "I've  often  thought 
if  I  had  a  piano — "she  roused  herself.  "But  don't 
you  suppose  he  thinks  of  her  all  the  time?" 

"Maybe,"  I  said,  "but  I'm  sure  he  thinks  of  his 
poetry  all  the  time.  The  poetry's  the  treble.  She  — 
his  loss,  his  despair,  whatever  he  calls  it  in  his  mind 
—  that's  the  bass.  It  comes  tum-tumming  in  when 
the  treble  needs  it." 

"I  see,"  said  Mary,  rather  injured,  "you  don't 
think  he's  got  much  depth  of  feeling." 

'/God  forgive  me  if  I  said  a  thing  like  that,"  I  told 
her.  "I  only  mean  she  may  be  the  most  beautiful 
thing  on  earth  to  him,  and  yet  she's  a  thing  outside 
himself.  His  poetry  isn't  a  thing  outside  himself. 
It  is  Blake.  I  saw  it  making  in  his  eyes  last  night. 
He's  a  dear  fellow,  Mary.  He  thinks  you  work  too 
hard." 


306  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

Suddenly  she  looked  shy  and  softened.  I  might 
have  brought  her  a  gift  from  the  Fortunate  Isles,  his 
kindness  seemed  so  dear. 

"I  guess  I  have  to,"  she  said  simply.  "I  haven't 
laid  by  anything,  you  see.  I've  got  to  now."  And 
then  suddenly  chary  of  this  personal  trend,  because 
we  had  perhaps  been  too  frank,  we  talked  of  England 
and  I  told  her  I  might  go  to  Africa.  I  began  to  find 
that  the  more  precious  as  I  saw  Mary's  marvel  over 
it.  Africa  seemed  to  hold  in  her  eyes  the  place  it 
had  in  her  geography  days. 

"Well,"  she  said,  "what  chances  you  men  do  have. 
I  don't  know  what  aunt  Cely  would  say." 

Aunt  Cely,  it  seemed,  was  living  in  the  country, 
guardian  of  Mr.  Haley's  incubus.  And  at  that  news  I 
dared  again,  as  I  was  leaving  Mary  at  her  office  door, 
and  adjured  her,  "Don't  you  go  down  there,  Mary,  or 
you'll  find  the  kid  bawling  and  getting  crumbs  on  the 
floor,  and  you'll  marry  Haley." 

And  Mary  laughed  this  time  and,  as  we  shook 
hands  heartily,  told  me  I  was  a  good  boy. 

"There's  nobody  just  like  you,"  she  said  in  her 
heartening  way.  "You're  a  good  boy." 

Nobody  just  like  me !  Well,  considering  the  blun- 
ders I  had  made,  and  the  paradises  I  had  managed 
not  to  enter,  I  hoped  not. 

I  went  down  to  the  Port  that  afternoon,  and  I  arrived 
there  at  a  moment  when  the  glory  and  freshness  of  the 
summer  seemed  to  be  resurrected,  under  an  added 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  307 

robe  of  grace.  I  shall  never  forget  that  day,  the  out- 
ward loveliness  of  it  like  a  symbol  of  more  than  tran- 
sient beauty,  the  assuaging  softness  in  the  air,  the 
indescribable  promise  far  more  solemn  than  the  promises 
of  sleep.  This  was  the  laying  of  the  earth  to  rest  for 
an  awakening.  I  felt  singularly  young,  fit  from  my 
sea  voyage,  the  tan  of  it  not  yet  off  my  face,  and  my 
blood  bounding  to  the  tune  of  something  to  happen. 
There  was  going  to  be  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth 
for  me,  my  spirit  told  me.  I  was  going  to  reach  for 
and  attain  the  freedom  of  the  will :  for  though  I 
thought  tenderly  and  lightly  of  Blake's  evading  the 
issue  of  the  will  and  life,  I  knew  he  had  got  hold  of 
things  by  the  right  handle.  I  took  a  carriage  up  from 
the  station,  and  found  the  house  sleeping,  like  the 
world.  My  son,  I  knew,  would  be  on  the  beach  at 
this  time,  and  Mildred  might  be  with  him.  But  she 
was  not  with  him.  She  was  at  her  desk  in  the  large, 
cool  living  room,  closing  envelopes  with  a  swift  motion. 
A  little  pile  of  them  was  at  her  side :  bills,  I  thought, 
for  her  check-book  lay  at  hand.  When  my  step 
invaded  the  stillness,  she  looked  up  quickly,  almost 
had  to  recall  herself,  and  I  had  time  to  see  how  tired 
her  face  had  grown.  What  hard  battle  had  she  fought, 
what  had  there  been  so  exacting  in  being  wife  of  mine  ? 
But  she  smiled  at  once  and  her  forehead  smoothed 
itself.  She  came  to  me,  less  in  haste  than  obedience, 
and,  moved  by  the  pallor  of  her  forehead,  where  should 
have  sat  happiness,  a  woman's  crown,  I  took  her  in 


308  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

my  arms  and  kissed  her  fervently.  Then  I  pulled 
out  a  big  chair  and  bade  her  rest  in  it,  and  myself 
straddled  her  own  chair  at  the  desk.  I  was  in  haste 
now  to  tell  my  news.  I  wonder  if  every  man  child 
is  in  as  hot  a  mood  to  run  with  his  tidings  to  the  ma- 
ternal heart  that  waits  him.  I  have  always  been  a 
creature  homing  to  the  woman  spirit  to  tell  her  what 
I  had  brought:  first  to  my  mother,  then  to  Mildred, 
and,  with  my  novel,  to  Ellen  Tracy. 

"I've  got  a  big  chance, "  I  told  her  now. 

She  was  unfeignedly  in  haste  to  hear.  Africa,  I 
added,  for  six  months  at  least. 

"How  much  do  they  offer?" 

This  was  her  instant  query.  I  told  her.  I  felt  a 
little  drop  in  temperature,  though  I  hardly  knew  why. 
Perhaps  I  expected  first  an  outcry,  —  "Africa  for  six 
months!"  But  her  geographical  instinct  was  not  so 
primitive  as  Mary's,  and  perhaps  Africa  seemed  to  her 
less  of  a  divagation.  She  was  considering. 

"They  won't  give  you  more?"   she  said. 

I  couldn't  ask  more,  I  told  her.  It  was  generous,  it 
was  sufficient.  I  wasn't  really  worth  more.  I  should 
be,  I  hoped,  when  I  came  back,  but  now  I  was  mighty 
proud  and  pleased  to  get  that  much. 

"When  do  you  sail?"  she  asked,  with  the  instancy 
of  the  wife  ready  to  buckle  on  her  husband's  sword. 

I  felt  another  drop,  but  I  tried  to  speak  chaffingly, 
still  my  old  habit  with  her  when  I  saw  no  thoroughfare. 

"Well,  am  I  going  at  all?    That's  the  question." 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  309 

" Haven't  you  told  them?" 

"I  told  them  I'd  got  to  ask  my  wife." 

That  was  gallant  and  tender.  I  looked  to  see  the 
answering  glow.  But  she  was  still  considering. 

"You  can't  do  better,"  she  said,  lifting  serious 
eyes  to  mine.  "You  can't  do  better,  I  should  say, 
now  can  you?" 

"No,"  I  said,  feeling  curiously  mortified,  as  a  person 
who  had  assumed  great  things  as  his  deserts,  "no,  I 
can't  in  all  probability  do  better." 

We  might  have  been  two  business  partners  talking 
out  the  conditions  of  a  deal.  But  after  all,  I  sum- 
moned my  common  sense  to  remember,  marriage  is  a 
business  partnership  of  a  sort.  Her  face  cleared  and 
brightened  as  that  of  one  who  has  reached  a  fair 
conclusion. 

"Then,"  said  she,  "you'll  go." 

"Yes,"  said  I,  with  a  dull  ache  in  the  region  of  my 
breathing  apparatus,  "I'll  go." 

But  I  called  upon  my  heart  not  to  be  a  ninny,  though 
I  did  permit  myself  the  reflection,  "It  seems  an  awfully 
long  time.  The  boy '11  have  grown  into  knickers." 

"Oh,  no,  he  won't,"  said  Mildred,  practically,  and 
again  I  was  unreasonably  dashed  at  her  having  the 
sense  I  lacked.  I  found  I  had  wanted  to  go  to  en- 
large my  horizon,  to  look  on  men  arid  things;  but  I 
had  depended  on  leaving  an  ache  behind  me.  It  was 
ridiculous,  and  I  would  buck  up  and  be  a  man,  and  as 
practical  as  she. 


310  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"Now,"  said  I,  "let's  talk  things  over.  What  I'd 
like  is  this.  I'd  like  to  give  up  the  Osborne  Street 
house  and  you  and  the  boy  go  into  a  flat  —  not  a 
little  one,  a  good  one  with  conveniences  and  a  view  - 
and  when  I  come  back  we  could  either  go  on  with  the 
flat  or  do  something  else.  Time  enough  to  decide 
that  then." 

I  ended  rather  weakly,  for  she  had  raised  her  eye- 
brows until  her  eyes  looked  large  and  portentous, 
almost  the  eyes  of  rage.  But  she  was  not  enraged. 
She  was  only  looking  full  at  me  with  the  measure  of 
her  wonder. 

"Give  up  the  Osborne  Street  house?"  she  repeated. 
"Why,  I  shouldn't  think  of  it  for  a  moment." 

The  difference  that  was  a  skirmish  the  other  day  had 
got  to  be  fought  all  over  again,  as  a  battle,  this  time. 

"I've  been  talking  to  Blake,"  I  began,  my  mind 
running  back  to  that  errant  interchange  as  something 
that  would  teach  her  what  I  meant  if  she  could  only 
see  my  mind  as  Blake  did. 

"About  Osborne  Street?"  she  inquired,  with  the 
smallest  tinge  of  satire  in  her  tone. 

"He  agrees  with  me  that  the  thing  for  me  to  do  is 
to  live  a  simpler  life,"  I  floundered.  "And  do  better 
work,"  I  ended,  in  a  banal  simplicity. 

"Where  does  Mr.  Blake  himself  live?"  she  asked, 
with  rather  an  elaborate  appearance  of  interest.  I 
told  her  miserably,  knowing  the  weight  of  the  argu- 
ment was  on  the  wrong  side  for  me. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  311 

"I  fancied  so,"  she  said,  a  delicate  conclusiveness 
in  her  tone,  "or  that  it  was  a  street  of  that  sort.  I 
don't  believe  Mr.  Blake  is  the  person  to  weigh  the 
advantages  of  living  in  Osborne  Street." 

"Mr.  Blake,"  I  cried  out  irritably,  "is  a  great  poet." 

"Well,"  said  she,  "do  you  propose  being  a  poet?" 

I  couldn't  answer.  You  could  hardly  say,  at  my 
age,  "I  propose  now  being  a  poet.  Go  to.  I  will 
sit  down  and  be  one."  Could  I  tell  her  that  I  felt 
within  me  the  stirring  of  indeterminate  impulses, 
futile,  shamefaced  so  far  as  their  intrinsic  outcome 
went,  yet  as  real  as  the  answering  fibre  in  the  young 
bird's  wings  when  his  elders  push  him  out  of  the  nest  ? 

"I  had  an  idea  Blake  rather  believed  in  me,"  I 
hedged.  "If  he  thinks  I  can  do  it,  I  can.  That's  the 
way  I  believe  in  him." 

"Is  it  his  belief,"  she  asked,  "that  poetry  can't  be 
written  in  Osborne  Street?" 

I  had  no  idea  she  could  speak  so  incisively.  I  had 
a  moment  of  miserable  admiration. 

"That's  not  it,"  I  said  clumsily.  "It's  only  that 
if  you  insist  on  living  on  Osborne  Street  with  no  more 
income  than  we've  got,  you  have  to  hustle  to  the 
exclusion  of  poetry.  It  isn't  that  I  work  too  hard, 
Mildred.  It's  that  I'm  worried  about  money  all  the 
time,  and  I  keep  muddling  over  how  to  get  a  dollar, 
and  it  debases  my  mind  like  the  mischief.  I  suppose 
if  I  were  a  big  chap,  a  full-fledged  poet  with  wings 
like  iron,  I  shouldn't  be  muddled.  I  should  get  out 


312  .MY  LOVE  AND  I 

of  bed  with  a  sonnet  ready  to  serve  up  for  breakfast 
and  I  could  turn  out  a  lyric  as  I  walked  down  town. 
But  I'm  likely  not  a  big  man.  I  see  no  signs  of  it. 
Only  I  want  to  be  as  big  as  I  can." 

She  seemed  to  be  thinking,  her  eyes  on  the  gray 
wall  in  front  of  her,  which  might  have  been  illimitable 
space  for  all  she  saw  of  it.  I  had  got  used  to  that 
look.  It  meant  that  Mildred  was  brooding  over  the 
fortunes  of  the  house  of  Redfield,  and  weaving  to 
better  them. 

"Very  well,  then,"  said  she.  There  was  ultimate 
conclusion  in  her  voice.  "This  is  what  I'll  agree  to 
do.  I'll  stay  in  Osborne  Street  until  you  come  home, 
and  then  we  can  talk  again." 

That  is,  we  were  exactly  where  we  had  been  when  I 
put  my  plea. 

"You  can  make  me,"  she  continued,  "the  same 
allowance  you  would  make  for  a  flat." 

"But  you  can't  live  in  Osborne  Street  for  any  less 
than  we're  spending  now,"  I  argued,  feeling  myself  a 
brute  to  have  it  to  say,  "and  spending  less  is  exactly 
what  I  want  to  do.  I  want  to  retrench." 

"I  can  live  in  Osborne  Street  for  less  than  we  are 
spending  now,"  she  insisted.  "Or  perhaps"  —  she 
seemed  to  throw  this  in  not  as  believing  it  but,  it 
truly  seemed,  to  hurt  me  —  "perhaps  you  didn't  pro- 
pose making  me  any  allowance  at  all." 

"Don't,"  I  begged  her.  "Don't,  dear.  I  don't  say 
you  haven't  done  awfully  well.  You're  a  tip-top 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  313 

manager."  I  took  up  her  check-book  as  I  spoke, 
and  turned  to  her  balance.  She  came  out  of  her  seat 
with  a  lithe  motion  and  was  upon  me,  not  with  a 
a  spring  but  a  delicate  furtiveness  I  didn't  like. 

"Here!"  she  said  breathlessly.  "Give  it  to  me. 
It's  mine." 

But  I  had  seen,  and  I  did  not  give  it  to  her.  It 
was  not  the  book  of  the  bank  where  I  had  left  her 
account  and  where  I  was  making  regular  deposits  for 
her.  It  was  another  bank  of  high  standing,  and  her 
balance  was  incredible.  I  had  never  had  so  much 
money  together  in  my  life,  and  here  was  the  witness 
of  it,  staring  up  at  me,  and  the  last  check  drawn  was 
to  the  name  of  her  dressmakers.  All  this  time  she 
stood  staring  at  me  and  I  stared  at  her.  She  had  no 
breath.  She  looked  like  a  woman  horribly  afraid.  Her 
hand  was  on  one  corner  of  the  check-book,  but  my 
hand  held  the  book,  though  lightly.  She  might  have 
snatched  it  if  she  had  had  the  bad  manners,  but  I 
knew  she  wouldn't  for  another  reason.  She  was 
afraid.  I  had  no  whim  of  tormenting  her,  but  I  drew 
the  book  gently  from  her  touch  and  put  it  in  my  pocket. 
We  could  talk  more  candidly,  I  thought,  when  the 
actual  record  was  not  between  us.  For  after  all,  the 
book  was  not  the  issue.  It  was  abstract  values  we 
were  to  meet  upon,  as  high  as  heaven,  as  unseen  also. 

"  Sit  down,"  I  said  to  her. 

She  retreated  to  her  chair,  and  there  she  sat,  upright 
and  rigid.  It  was  I  who  was  trembling.  My  hand 


314  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

shook.  I  felt  the  nausea  of  nervous  overthrow,  and  I 
realized  I  was  in  the  rage  where  men  slay,  if  not  their 
enemy,  then  something  hi  themselves.  I  don't  like 
to  return  to  that  moment  of  finding  myself  outside 
my  accustomed  frame  of  mind,  of  obediences  to  the 
world  as  men  have  judged  it  right  to  make  it. 
Whether  I  had  returned  to  the  brute  I  cannot  say, 
whether  my  higher  faculties  were  suspended.  I  only 
know  I  was  another  man  and  a  most  miserable  one, 
my  heart  throbbing  until  it  seemed  to  run  away  with 
my  life,  my  nerves  hi  revolt,  my  head  whirling.  All 
the  accustomed  channels  of  life  seemed  to  have  run 
dry.  The  sun  was  shining,  but  it  shone  with  no 
answering  recognition  from  my  dull  eyes.  My  bread 
and  water  I  knew  would  henceforth  be  the  food  of  my 
physical  frame.  There  would  be  no  answering  paean 
within  me:  " Bless  God  for  bread.  Bless  Him  for 
water  and  the  sun."  Yes,  something  had  been  knocked 
senseless  in  my  brain.  The  higher  faculties  were  be- 
numbed and  the  natural  man  was  having  his  brutish 
way.  Yet  I  was  thinking  fast.  I  saw  what  was,  in 
the  brilliant  light  of  certainty.  All  this  time,  while  I 
seemed  to  be  accommodating  myself  to  the  new,  dread- 
ful world  where  I  found  myself,  I  must  have  been 
looking  at  her  and  without  a  word.  For  she  seemed 
to  wither  and  grow  old,  though  she  still  kept  her  up- 
right pose  in  the  chair,  and  out  of  this  miserable  mask 
that  had  been  her  spring-tide  face,  came  a  dead  voice:  — 
"Do  you  accuse  me?"  The  voice  fell,  and  then 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  315 

flew  out  in  anger,  a  sharp,  despairing  anger,  like  an 
animal  that  springs.  "It's  your  own  fault.  You  forced 
me  to  it." 

The  words  sickened  me  anew.  I  had  to  speak.  I 
couldn't  have  her  babbling  on  in  horrible  accepted 
terms.  I  felt  myself  shuddering  all  over.  It  might 
well  have  been,  for  my  physical  overthrow,  as  if  I 
were  the  one  to  be  accused. 

"Don't,  don't,"  I  said.     "Don't  speak." 

If  she  would  not  incriminate  herself  for  a  moment,  I 
might  pull  myself  together  and  think  what  to  say. 
And  then,  when  heart  and  flesh  seemed  failing  me,  a 
hand  came  to  me  out  of  the  living  past.  I  thought  of 
Egerton  Sims.  What  would  a  courtly  gentleman  like 
Egerton  Sims  have  done  when  he  found  his  wife  cloth- 
ing herself  out  of  the  substance  of  another  man,  with 
a  background  she  and  the  other  man  alone  knew  ? 

"Mildred,"  I  said.    I  called  her  name  again. 

At  the  sound  of  my  voice,  raucous  in  my  ears, 
gentle  as  I  tried  to  make  it,  she  plucked  up  courage. 
Perhaps,  seeing  me  so  undone,  she  found  the  balance 
of  strength  on  her  side  and  foresaw  my  overthrow. 

"Give  it  back  to  me,"  she  said,  and  I  laughed,  for 
that  made  it  seem  again  as  if  the  book  were  the  issue 
between  us.  "What  business  have  you  to  keep  it?" 

"I  shall  keep  it,"  I  said.  "You  can  get  another. 
But  I've  got  to  hold  this  for  reference." 

She  rose  to  her  feet,  and  I  rose  with  her.  Rage 
came  upon  me  again,  and  I  crossed  the  distance  be- 


316  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

tween  us  at  a  stride  and  took  her  wrists  in  my  hands, 
those  slender  wrists  with  the  a^ure  veining  I  had  so 
often  kissed.  There  we  stood  manacled  together  by 
the  law  and  by  my  rage,  and  she  was  trembling. 

"When  did  he  give  it  to  you?"   I  asked. 

She  was  silent. 

"The  date  in  the  book  is  June,"  I  told  her.  "June 
fifteenth.  Was  it  then?" 

She  bent  her  head  in  affirmation. 

"June  fifteenth,"  I  said,  "two  weeks  after  I  had 
sailed."  And  yet  was  it  June  fifteenth  after  all  ?  for, 
why  should  I  believe  it  ?  and  after  all,  what  difference 
did  it  make  when  he  had  endowed  her?  "You  must 
give  it  back  to  him,"  I  said. 

She  did  not  answer,  but  I  saw  immovable  resolu- 
tion in  her  face.  She  would  not  give  it  back,  let  me 
plead  how  I  might. 

"The  car  was  yourg,  too,  I  suppose,"  I  said.  Things 
were  pretty  bad  with  me  if  I  could  sneer  at  her.  "The 
car  and  the  chauffeur,  and  the  chauffeur's  food.  And 
it  looked  as  if  it  were  your  cousin's  car,  and  he  had 
lent  it  to  you,  to  you  and  aunt  Rule.  But  it  was 
yours.  That  was  understood  between  you.  Only 
aunt  Rule  wasn't  to  know,  she  and  the  poor  clown  of 
a  husband  coming  home  with  the  beggarly  sum  he 
had  earned  for  you." 

While  I  let  my  rage  run  itself  out  in  this  vaporing, 
I  was  perfectly  conscious  that  Egerton  Sims  would 
not  have  met  a  blow  like  this  in  this  wild  way.  He 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  317 

was  there,  a  grand  figure  in  the  vaporings  of  my  mind, 
but  I  could  not  get  him  clearly. 

"Sit  down  there,"  I  said  to  Mildred.  "Sit  down 
at  the  desk." 

She  obeyed  me,  chiefly  glad,  I  think,  to  get  rid  of 
my  touch  upon  her  wrists.  I  took  out  the  check- 
book and  laid  it  before  her. 

"Make  out  a  check,"  I  said,  "for  the  entire  amount." 

She  sat  dumb  as  a  statue,  looking  at  the  bright  red 
cover  of  the  book. 

"Open  it,"  I  said.     "Make  out  the  check." 

She  did  open  the  book,  and,  with  a  lifeless  hand, 
wrote  the  number  and  the  date;  it  was  a  straggling 
scrawl.  She  was  afraid,  I  knew,  and  I  was  merciless 
in  my  acceptance  of  her  fear.  It  was  a  weapon  on 
my  side.  She  filled  in  the  figures  carefully,  exactly 
as  I  had  told  her.  It  was  the  entire  sum.  Then  she 
looked  up  at  me. 

"What  name?"  she  asked. 

"My  name,"  I  said.  "His  name  isn't  to  be  spoken 
between  us.  Make  it  out  to  me  and  I  will  take  it  to 
him  personally." 

She  laid  down  the  pen. 

"You  won't  ?"  I  said.    "You  won't  ?" 

She  made  no  answer.  I  felt  as  if  she  had  decided 
not  to  speak  to  me  again  at  all.  I  will  not  tell  what 
murderous  impulse  came  over  me.  It  was  not  mur- 
derous against  her,  but  against  the  world,  everything 
that  lay  outside  me  to  torture  me.  I  felt  blind  hate. 


318  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

Again  I  told  her  to  do  it,  and  again,  while  she  sat 
still,  her  eyes  fixed  even  meekly  on  the  desk,  I  be- 
sieged her  with  questions  whether  she  meant  that 
she  actually  would  not  do  as  I  had  bidden  her. 

"Then,"  I  said,  "if  you  won't,  if  you're  going  to 
eat  the  bread  of  one  man  and  let  another  man  clothe 
you,  by  God,  I'll  leave  you." 

And  at  that  instant  I  heard  a  little  crinkling  sound 
on  the  gravel  of  the  drive.  It  was  young  Egerton 
coming  home  from  the  shore  with  his  nurse,  and  the 
sound  was  that  of  his  little  cart.  Did  the  sight  of 
him  soften  my  mind  toward  the  woman  who  had 
brought  him  into  the  world?  Not  for  an  instant. 
He  made  another  weapon  of  hate. 

"And,"  I  said  to  her,  "I'll  take  my  son  with  me." 

I  turned  from  her  swiftly  because  she  was  a  part 
of  the  world  I  hated,  and  I  got  out  of  the  house  before 
my  son  could  reach  me,  though  he  bellowed,  seeing 
me,  until  the  nurse  was  fain  to  hurry.  But  I  would 
not  meet  him.  I  took  the  other  turn  of  the  drive  and 
I  heard  his  voice,  aggrieved,  following  after  me,  and 
the  nurse  as  she  tried  to  comfort  him.  At  the  gate 
I  met  the  car,  Mildred's  car.  The  chauffeur  had 
stopped  it  at  sight  of  me,  and  now  he  asked  me  civilly 
if  I  had  ordered  it.  I  looked  at  him  for  a  blank  minute. 
He  seemed  a  part  of  the  world  in  conspiracy  against  me. 

No,  I  said,  we  shouldn't  need  it  this  afternoon. 
We  were  going  away.  Would  he  find  Mr.  Gorham 
and  tell  him  we  shouldn't  need  it  again,  and  that  I 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  319 

would  see  Mr.  Gorham  personally,  in  a  day  or  two, 
and  settle  with  him. 

Then  I  walked  on,  as  fast  as  I  could  stride,  for  I 
knew  now  where  I  was  going.  I  saw  where  this  had 
pushed  me,  where  all  the  years  had  led  me,  and  at 
once  I  was  deliriously  light-hearted  and  light-headed 
in  the  measure  of  my  former  madness.  For  I  was 
going  to  Ellen  Tracy. 

XXX 

I  WENT  in  town  soberly  enough,  and  bought  a  paper 
on  the  way,  really  to  persuade  my  mind  into  following 
the  accustomed  grooves  of  life.  I  sat  there  reading 
about  trivialities  and  disasters,  and  all  the  time  some- 
thing within  me  kept  chanting,  —  "I  am  going  to 
Ellen  Tracy." 

At  the  station  I  took  a  carriage  to  cross  the  city, 
and  it  was  not  until  I  was  two-thirds  of  the  way  to 
Hopeful  Sands,  with  the  dusk  now  glooming,  that  fear 
struck  upon  me  lest  she  should  not  be  there  at  all. 
What  could  I  do  if  she  were  not  ?  I  felt  the  sickness 
of  that  premonitory  chill.  I  looked  out  of  the  car 
window  as  we  fled,  at  little  homesteads  brooding  down. 
I  knew,  none  better,  the  life  hi  those  farm-houses  at  the 
supper  hour,  mother  stewing  things  and  making  the  cheer 
of  warmth,  and  father  coming  in  from  the  chores  and 
bringing  the  twilight  chill:  for  it  was  cool  at  dusk 
though  the  day  had  been  like  summer.  These  were 


320  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

the  intimate  sanctities  of  homely  life.  I  knew  the 
smell  of  supper-time,  and  saw  the  shining  lamp.  I 
was  the  little  boy  by  the  hearth,  feeling  his  calloused 
toes  where  the  ungracious  earth  had  "  stubbed "  them. 
He  had  thrown  away  his  shoes  and  stockings  when  the 
day  turned  out  so  warm  and  gone  back  to  summer's 
"  barefoot,"  and  spite  of  what  mother  might  say,  he'd 
"stick  it  out"  till  bed.  But  after  all,  was  I  the  boy? 
No,  I  was  something  happier  and  more  free  than  "bare- 
foot," for  I  had  escaped  and  I  was  going  to  Ellen 
Tracy.  In  a  preposterous  daring  I  thought  I  might 
take  my  son  to  her  to-morrow,  and  it  looked  sane  and 
right.  I  made  no  doubt  that,  in  her  obedience  to  other- 
worldly values,  she  would  receive  him  until  I  could 
provide  for  him  afar  from  the  strange  woman  who  had 
given  him  birth. 

When  we  stopped  at  Hopeful  Sands  it  was  dark,  and 
I  took  a  carriage  and  drove,  under  the  rising  moon,  to 
her  gate.  There  I  dismissed  the  man.  I  would  find 
my  way  unannounced  by  the  sound  of  wheels.  I  went 
in  haste  through  the  driveway's  winding  length,  a 
lamp  here  and  there  emphasizing  the  intervals  of  dark, 
and  the  bitter  smell  of  leaves  ripening  pungent  upon 
the  air.  The  door  was  open,  and  no  one  in  sight.  For 
some  reason  that  seemed  to  me  a  bright  omen,  and  I 
walked  through  the  hall  to  the  terrace,  and  there  she 
was,  all  in  white,  like  an  angel,  and  aunt  Patten  sitting 
near.  Aunt  Patten's  presence  was  no  more  to  me  in  a 
deterrent  way  than  if  she  had  been  a  creature  of  imper- 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  321 

vious  senses,  or  sworn  to  be  absolutely  sympathetic 
with  what  I  sought.  I  crossed  the  room  and  knelt 
beside  Ellen  Tracy  and  bent  my  head  upon  her  arm. 
The  one  glance  I  had  taken  at  her  face  showed  it 
almost  luminously  white  and  the  eyes  wide  and  shining. 
Had  she,  through  some  hidden  channel  of  sense,  ex- 
pected me,  or  would  my  sudden  coming  have  been 
inevitably  moving  to  her  ?  And  at  that  same  instant 
I  heard  the  soft  swish  of  silk  and  light  retreating  foot- 
steps ;  aunt  Patten  had  left  us  to  our  talk.  I  think 
I  had  put  my  arms  about  Ellen  Tracy,  and  she  sat  there 
as  still  as  a  woman  of  stone.  Only  things  were  not  still 
in  that  beautiful  kingdom  of  her  body.  I  could  hear 
her  heart,  and  it  ran  a  race  with  life.  As  for  me,  I  had 
come  home.  That  I  knew.  And  now  I  spoke  and  what 
I  think  I  said  was  this :  — 

"I  have  left  her.  I  have  come  to  you." 
What  I  expected  I  do  not  know,  but  whatever  I  ex- 
pected, my  exaltation  of  soul  told  me  it  would  be 
righteous.  I  was  in  that  state  when  we  seem  to  have 
escaped  the  earth  to  breathe  a  higher  ether  where, 
whether  fallaciously  or  not,  our  hungers  tell  us  there  is 
liberty.  If  she  had  put  her  arms  about  me,  I  swear 
I  should  have  taken  it  for  an  acceptance  as  heavenly 
as  my  mother's  comforting:  or  perhaps  an  angePs. 
The  angel  doesn't  debase  you.  She  makes  you  stronger 
to  go  on.  Only  the  dilemma  is  to  know  who  the  angels 
are;  and  I  thought  I  knew.  What  Ellen  Tracy  did 
was  to  say  in  a  perfectly  steady  voice:  — 


322  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"Get  up,"  adding  in  a  kind  entreaty  that  asked  for- 
giveness for  too  harsh  a  mandate,  " Please!" 

And  I  got  up,  not  mortified  from  her  repulse,  but  very 
anxious  to  obey,  as  we  are  when  mother  calls  us.  The 
maternal  in  her  was  speaking  to  the  child  in  me.  We 
are  little  children  when  we  love  very  much,  and  I  did 
love  her.  I  think  she  knew  she  must  mother  me  and 
command  me,  so  natural  was  her  wisdom,  and  unspoiled. 

"Sit  there,"  she  said,  and  I  sank  into  the  chair  aunt 
Patten  had  left  vacant.  Suddenly  I  felt  tired  and  sad 
and  forlorn  indeed.  I  was  even  hungry.  Then 
Ellen  Tracy,  as  if  she  felt  she  had  been  hard  enough 
on  me,  smiled,  and  clasped  her  hands  about  her  knees 
and  bent  forward  to  me,  and  said:  - 

"We  mustn't  sentimentalize,  you  and  I.  We  can't 
fall  into  that  trap.  And  how  is  young  Egerton  ?" 

She  seemed  to  be  recalling  me,  in  that  tenderly 
laughing  reminder,  to  the  biggest  tie  of  honor  I  had; 
and  she  was  right.  I  knew  that.  But  I  wished  I  had 
some  hand  to  lay  hold  of  in  my  queer  loneliness.  The 
very  little  hand  of  Egerton  might  have  been  enough. 
I  was  not  to  lay  hold  of  Ellen  Tracy's  hand.  That 
I  saw,  and  I  smiled  a  little  ruefully  at  her  command 
of  me. 

"I  think  I'd  better  tell  you  about  it,"  I  said  waver- 
ingly ;  and  now  I  was  light-headed. 

"Better  not,"  said  she,  brusquely.  Then  she  broke 
down  herself.  "Oh,"  she  said,  "let  me  have  that  to 
remember.  Let  me  remember  you  kept  all  the  loyal- 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  323 

ties,  all  the  commandments.  You  know  what  things 
we  expect  of  men.  They  don't  do  them,  not  once 
a  lifetime.  Don't  be  weak.  Be  splendid!" 

I  tried  to  pull  myself  together.  I  was  very  far  from 
being  splendid,  and  the  banner  of  it  waved  at  me  didn't 
seem  to  draw  me  on.  It  made  me  rather  dizzy.  I 
seemed  to  be  groping,  and  I  thought  I  saw  realities 
that  were  the  roots  of  life,  not  the  gay  bourgeoning 
that  lies  in  being  splendid.  I  felt  she'd  got  to  be  con- 
vinced and  I  had  one  argument  she  was  ignoring. 

"But,"  I  said  quite  practically,  for  there  was  no 
sense  in  subterfuges  with  a  person  like  her,  "you  see 
I  love  you.  That's  why  I  came." 

"Yes,"  said  she,  just  as  simply,  "I  know  that.  And 
I  do  you.  But  this  is  the  last  time  we  can  ever  say  it." 

I  was  immediately  at  peace,  though  there  was  no 
marvel  of  assuagement  in  her  saying  she  loved  me.  I 
must  have  known  it  —  always,  I  thought,  in  the 
challenge  of  eternity  that  goes  with  sudden  love.  I 
repeated  the  words:  - 

"You  do  love  me,  then  ?  " 

"Yes,"  she  said.  There  were  tears  on  her  cheeks, 
and  her  eyes  seemed  to  implore  me  to  understand  their 
sadness,  since  she  would  fain  have  hidden  it  away. 
"Of  course  I  do.  But  till  that  day  I  met  you  in  the 
street  I  didn't  know  you  were  married." 

Well,  she  had  been  quicker  to  recognize  me  than  I 
to  give  my  allegiance  to  her  its  rightful  name.  Yet  I 
had  known  it  was  allegiance.  It  was  the  same  thing. 


324  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"And  when  you  gave  me  the  novel  to  read,"  she  said, 
as  if  she  had  wondered  passionately  whether  this  she 
could  ever  tell,  and  now  it  came  pelting  out,  "I  thought 
you'd  seen  it  hi  me  —  seen  I  cared  too  much  —  and  that 
was  your  kind  way  of  telling  me  to  be  proud."  Her 
mouth  grieved  now,  as  her  eyes  remembered  hours  and 
days  hidden  from  me  then  and  to  be  hidden  now. 

I  was  following  back  the  path  of  her  girlish  shame. 

"You  thought  that,"  I  said. 

And  I  could  say  no  more  because  my  ruth  over  her 
was  so  great.  Now  she  wiped  her  eyes  in  a  common- 
place way  and  smiled  at  me. 

"That's  all,"  she  said.  "I  suppose  I  wanted  you  to 
know  that.  I  wanted  you  to  know  I  thought  you  were 
as  free  as  I  —  you  looked  so,  somehow!  —  I  had  to 
have  you  know  I  wasn't  so  weak  or  bold  in  thinking 
you  the  best  and  bonniest  ever." 

I?  What  fantasy  had  invested  me  with  such  a 
lustre? 

"But,"  she  said,  "you're  not  free.  You're  bound 
in  every  possible  way,  and  this  is  the  last  time  you  and 
I  are  to  speak  so  to  each  other." 

Delight  was  in  my  soul. 

"You  can't  prevent  my  loving  you,"  I  told  her. 

Any  woman,  it  seemed  to  me,  might  have  allowed 
herself  a  wave  of  joy  at  being  loved  so  much.  Not 
she.  It  had  made  her  sad.  She  spoke  almost  as  if  to 
herself. 

"I've  often  wondered  what  I  should  do  if  a  thing  like 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  325 

this  happened  —  a  thing  that  was  so  overwhelming  it 
could  even  make  itself  seem  right." 

"It  is  right,"  I  cried.  "I  have  been  mistaken.  I 
have  left  her.  I  am  free." 

She  shook  her  head,  looking  at  me  now. 

"Do  you  think  you  can  break  your  promises?"  she 
said.  "Why,  you're  not  even  free  to  talk  to  me  like 
this.  I  am  not  free  to  talk  to  you." 

And  then  a  man  came  in  with  a  tray  and  on  it  were 
sandwiches  and  coffee.  The  smell  of  the  coffee  was 
good  to  me,  and  I  felt  that  I  must  be  a  weak  chap 
indeed,  for  perhaps  this  was  "feeling  faint."  She  told 
the  man  to  draw  up  a  little  table  and  place  the  tray 
there;  and  when  he  had  left  us,  she  poured  a  cup  of 
coffee  and  put  it  into  my  hand.  And  while  I  drank 
it  and  ate  she  talked  about  aunt  Patten,  who,  she  said, 
always  knew  by  instinct  whether  a  guest  had  come  in 
haste  and  dinnerless,  and  was  always  sending  in  trays. 
I  thought  it  might  not  have  been  instinct  but  the  sight 
of  my  face :  for  if  it  looked  as  I  had  felt,  it  must  have 
been  distraught  indeed. 

When  I  had  set  down  my  cup,  with  new  strength 
in  me,  I  turned  to  her.  She  was  more  than  a  beautiful 
woman.  To  my  eyes  there  was  an  aura  about  her,  the 
emanation  of  what  I  knew  to  be  her  love  and  truth. 
She  was  clad  not  only  in  her  own  beauty  but  in  the 
mantle  my  eyes  had  lent  her,  and  I  forgot  all  other 
womanhood.  Nobody  seemed  to  have  power  to  harm 
me  any  more,  nor  even  to  give  me  pain.  All  the  steps 


326  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

of  my  life  had  been  leading  me  here,  to  her  gate  and 
to  her  feet. 

"Do  you  mean  to  tell  me,"  I  said  in  my  accession  of 
joy  triumphant,  "that  I  am  not  to  tell  you  I  love  you  ? " 

And  immediately  I  saw  I  had  given  her  pain.  Her 
face  that,  a  moment  ago,  had  had  a  sadness  of  its  own, 
quivered  into  a  mute  grief. 

"Don't/7  she  said. 

I  saw  she  had  lost  something  she  desired  passionately 
to  retain.  Was  it  that  she  had  placed  me  on  an  emi- 
nence, and  I  had  stumbled  from  it  ?  Well,  it  was  better 
that  she  should  know  me  as  I  was.  What  could  either 
of  us  gain  by  my  telling  her  sophisticated  lies  when  I 
loved  her  and  I  believed,  if  I  lived  chastely  for  her  sake, 
I  had  a  right  to  tell  her  so  ?  I  would  tell  her  what  lay 
behind  my  flight  to  her. 

"Mildred  — "  I  began,  but  she  stopped  me  with  a 
passionate  outcry. 

"No!  no!  Keep  her  secrets.  You  must  be  true 
to  her  or  I  shall  die." 

I  seemed  to  myself  to  be  floundering  round  in  the 
bog  of  her  denial,  trying  to  find  the  path  to  take  me  to 
her.  Was  it  not  right  for  me  to  insist  a  little  ? 

"She  doesn't  love  me,"  I  said.  "I  don't  believe 
she  even  loves  the  child.  Isn't  it  right  for  me  to  take 
the  child  and  go?" 

She  looked  at  me  dumbly.  I  saw  she  was  bent,  in 
this  fantasy  of  hers,  to  prove  me  a  hero,  bent  on  my 
deciding  my  destiny  in  the  way  a  hero  should. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  327 

"I  won't  ask  anything  of  you,"  I  told  her,  " except 
just  to  let  me  love  you.  To  see  you  sometimes.  To 
know  you  remember  this  night,  when  you  said  —  " 

"We  shan't  forget."  This  leaped  from  her.  It  was 
said  before  she  could  quench  the  fire  that  kindled  it. 
"There's  no  danger.  We  shan't  either  of  us  forget." 

"No,"  I  said  in  an  answering  glow. 

And  immediately  I  knew  I  wanted  her  head  upon 
my  breast.  She  was  right.  There  was  no  middle 
ground  for  us.  We  must  say  good-by  that  night,  or 
tread  the  poor,  worn  path  of  tawdry  sentimentalizing 
and  expedient,  the  love  that  lies,  saying,  "I  am  friend- 
ship," the  passion  that  cloaks  itself  in  subterfuge. 
The  world,  I  began  to  see,  was  a  desert  of  hungers.  If 
the  desert  could  be  watered  by  the  tears  of  our  true 
repentance,  would  it  bloom?  I  thought  not.  For 
tears,  I  remembered,  were  salt.  But  now  Ellen  Tracy 
turned  from  me  and  walked  to  the  rail  and  looked  out 
upon  the  night.  She  stood  very  still,  as  if  she  were 
listening,  and  I  listened  with  her.  The  wind  had 
changed  and  there  was  commotion  out  there  at  sea 
beyond  the  bar.  The  buoys  were  waking  up.  Even 
the  river  felt  the  trouble  of  the  great  water  to  which 
it  was  tributary,  and  I  heard  its  slap-slap  on  the  beach. 
Ellen  Tracy  turned  and  walked  back  to  me.  I  wish  I 
could  tell  what  dear  change  had  come  upon  her  face, 
how  young  it  was,  how  like  a  child's,  how  piteous  in 
the  hope  that  I  would  help  her. 

"I've  got  to  tell  you  a  lot  of  things,"  she  said.     She 


328  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

was  faintly  smiling  at  me,  in  that  wistful  way  of  one 
who  beseeches  tolerance  for  confession.     "Sit  down." 

So  I  seated  myself  opposite  her  again,  and  we  were 
near,  so  near  that  I  could  see  the  widened  pupils  of  her 
eyes.  And  she  surprised  me  first  of  all. 

"I'm  not  a  prig,"  said  she.  "I'm  not  trying  to  save 
my  own  soul." 

"No,"  I  said,  "no.  Your  soul  doesn't  need  any 
saving." 

She  shook  her  head  impatiently. 

"My  soul  is  like  other  souls.  It  has  its  temptations. 
It  knows  how  to  deceive  itself.  But  I  am  not  going 
to  be  deceived."  She  looked  at  me  in  the  anguish  of  a 
creature  who  is  being  drawn  somewhere  against  its 
will.  "If  it  would  help  you,"  she  said  most  piteously, 
"I  would  leave  the  whole  world  and  go  with  you." 

Was  this  my  gracious  lady,  this  girl  with  the  quiver- 
ing face,  begging  me  not  to  ask  her  to  go  because  she 
longed  so  inconceivably  to  yield?  I  began  to  feel 
something  of  her  terror  lest  I  should  beseech  her,  lest 
I  should  lose  the  lady  I  had  loved  and  see  eternally 
the  quivering  creature  I  had  killed. 

"Why,"  said  she,  still  the  girl,  still  youth  and  tender- 
ness incarnate,  "I  would  die  for  you."  And  again, 
"Do  you  think  I  am  trying  to  save  my  own  soul ?" 

"No,"  I  said,  moved  beyond  all  but  the  power  of 
reassuring  speech,  "no,  child."  But  eager  love  got  the 
better  of  me,  and  I  cried,  "And  I'd  die  for  you.  Yes,  I'd 
die  eternally." 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  329 

"That's  it,"  said  Ellen  Tracy,  as  if  I  had  given  her 
the  very  clew  she  wanted.  "You  think  you  would. 
And  I  think  I  would  for  you.  We'd  be  blotted  out 
gladly.  But  we  can't.  God  won't  let  us." 

At  last  she'd  got  hold  of  something  to  stand  by  her  — 
God  —  and  her  face  shone.  "You  see,"  she  said,  "I've 
heard  so  much  of  it,  people  trying  to  find  some  other 
way  round,  when  there's  no  way  but  one  —  the  straight, 
true  way.  I'm  afraid  I  should  die  if  you  deceived  your- 
self or  if  I  let  you  do  it." 

She  was  speaking  in  all  a  child's  simplicity.  She 
looked  at  me  with  a  child's  unspoiled  clarity  of  glance. 
I  began  to  see  that  Ellen  Tracy  was  somebody  for  me 
to  take  care  of,  to  protect,  even  from  what  was  surely 
her  love  for  me.  I  tried  to  speak  very  calmly  now. 

"You're  not  willing  I  should  tell  you  about  it,  what 
made  me  come  to  you  ?" 

She  looked  doubtful,  but  she  shook  her  head. 

"Better  not,"  she  said.  "Anybody  — "  I  knew  she 
meant  Mildred  —  "  anybody  would  be  hurt  if  she  knew 
her  affairs  were  carried  to  another  woman." 

I  felt  a  grim  impulse  to  laugh.  That  sense  of  irony 
that  Mildred  was  responsible  for  fostering  in  me  came 
to  the  surface  and  bade  me  remember  that  Mildred 
might  be  perfectly  willing  to  hear  that  Ellen  Tracy  was 
the  arbiter  of  her  fate,  because  Ellen  Tracy  was  so 
"well  placed." 

"Then,"  I  said,  "there's  nothing  for  me  but  to  do 
my  sum  and  get  the  answer  as  best  I  can." 


330  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

She  hadn't  been  to  district  school,  but  she  took  me 
as  quickly  as  Mary  would  have  done,  smiling  at  me 
a  smile  that  seemed  all  tender  gratitude. 

"I'm  not  to  see  you  often?"  I  put  tentatively. 

She  shook  her  head. 

"But  you  don't  say,"  I  emboldened  myself  to  urge, 
"that  I'm  not  to  see  you  at  all." 

"We  haven't  met  very  often  in  the  past,"  said 
Ellen  Tracy,  proudly,  I  thought,  as  if  she  couldn't  be 
making  trysts  with  a  man  who  was  in  love  with  her. 
"We  shan't  do  so  any  more  in  the  future.  You  have 
your  wife  and  son,  and  I  am  busy." 

Strangely  her  brusqueness  did  not  hurt  me.  It  made 
me  feel  such  loving  ruth  for  her  because  she  had  to  stab 
herself  and  me,  that  she  seemed  very  little  to  me  and 
most  dear.  My  love  for  her  was  of  the  nature  of  the 
love  I  had  for  my  little  son.  By  that  I  suppose  I  mean 
it  was  compact  of  all  loves,  and  the  tender  side  blos- 
somed at  that  instant. 

"Ellen  Tracy,"  I  said  —  I  always  had  to  use  her  two 
names  together.  I  had  felt  from  the  first  as  if  I  had 
a  right  to  that  —  "do  you  remember  those  two  times 
when  you  and  I  seemed  to  escape  from  our  bodies  and 
to  meet  in  a  garden?" 

She  nodded.  She  was  looking  at  me  as  if  fascinated 
—  by  fear.  She  had  been  afraid,  I  saw,  that  I  would 
ask  this. 

"Could  we"  —  I  hesitated,  for  now  I  was  more 
afraid  of  intensifying  that  look  on  her  face  than  of 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  331 

anything  else  in  the  world  —  "could  we  meet  in  that 
garden?" 

"No,"  she  said  violently,  "no." 

"Why  not,  Ellen  Tracy?" 

"Because  it's  unwholesome.     And  so  it's  wrong." 

"Ah,  but  how  can  we  help  it?"  I  urged,  swept  out- 
side my  care  for  her  again  by  the  tide  of  my  passion, 
"if  we're  not  to  meet  in  the  flesh  —  if  we  could  dream 
about  each  other  and  meet  so  — " 

"No,"  she  said  again. 

"You  can't  prevent  my  coming,"  I  told  her,  "to 
the  garden  to  find  you." 

"I  can  refuse  to  be  there,"  she  said.     " I  do  refuse  it." 

"You  were  there  on  shipboard.  You  didn't  refuse 
then." 

"No.  The  temptation  was  too  great.  And  I 
thought  you  didn't  know." 

"Know  what?" 

"Know —  we  were  —  lovers."  She  said  it  solemnly, 
and  not  a  heart-beat  of  my  own  told  me  it  was  wrong 
for  her  to  say  it. 

But  it  could  never  be  said  again.  The  very  tone 
of  it,  the  measureless  solemnity,  had  told  me  that. 

"But  you  knew  it,"  I  besought  her. 

"Yes,"  she  said. 

Then  she  seemed  to  shake  off  the  spell  of  this  ecstasy, 
and  got  up  from  her  chair,  went  to  a  little  desk  and 
looked  at  a  paper  there.  She  came  back  holding  it  in 
her  hand,  and  stood  before  me  smiling.  It  was  a  time- 


332  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

table,  and  her  smile  seemed  to  beg  forgiveness  for 
bringing  its  decrees  into  our  talk. 

"Now,"  said  she,  "I  find  there  is  a  train  in  town  in 
forty  minutes.  I'll  order  the  car." 

I  got  on  my  feet  and  tried  to  meet  her  smile  with  as 
brave  a  one  of  my  own. 

"No,"  I  said,  "I  don't  want  your  car.  Ellen  Tracy, 
is  this  the  end?" 

She  looked  at  me,  and  I  thought  she  was  entreating 
me  to  comprehend  the  things  she  would  not  say.  I 
thought  I  had  got  somewhere  at  last;  but  she  must 
help  me. 

"There  couldn't  have  been  the  garden,"  I  said,  "un- 
less there  were  other  places  —  other  worlds  —  other 
lives—" 

"So  I  think,"  she  said.     "I  know  it." 

"Then,"  I  said,  a  feeling  on  me  such  as  the  Norse- 
man might  have  had  when  he  drained  his  glass  before 
the  burning  ship  engulfed  him,  "here's  to  our  meeting 
then.  It's  a  long  road  —  but  —  you  be  there." 

Then  I  turned  away  and  left  her,  not  even  offering 
to  take  her  hand.  I  knew  she  would  like  it  better  so. 
And  some  late  pride  had  risen  in  me  to  show  her  that  I 
too  was  ready  to  play  for  the  greater  stake,  run  for  the 
farther  goal.  She  walked  with  me  across  the  hall  and 
to  the  outer  door,  where  the  night  was  troubled  with 
driving  clouds  and  there  were  faint  stars  under  them. 
On  the  step  I  turned,  and  now  she  spoke  tumultuously, 
eagerly,  like  the  child  she  really  was. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  333 

"They're  all  such  cowards  in  the  books!  I  want  you 
to  do  the  straight  thing.  I  want  you  to  be"  —  again 
she  used  the  word  that  evidently  glowed  for  her  — 
"splendid." 

And  now  I  did  take  her  hands  and  they  did  not  re- 
sist me.  I  bent  and  kissed  them,  first  the  right  hand, 
then  the  left. 

"Good-by,"  I  said,  "my  Lady,  my  dear  Lady.  I'll 
be  there." 

And  whether  I  meant  I  would  be  at  that  tryst  in  a 
life  after  our  waking  from  this,  or  whether  I  meant  I'd 
fulfil  what  she  besought  of  me,  I  do  not  know.  But 
she  knew  I  had  faith,  because  the  mother  heart  of  her 
was  wiser  than  my  tongue,  and  I  left  her,  I  believed, 
not  unhappy  as  I  went  out  to  my  task.  But  I  did  not 
take  that  next  train  back  to  town.  I  chose  a  path  that 
led  off  from  the  driveway  and  descended  steeply,  for 
I  believed  it  would  lead  me  to  the  strip  of  shingle  where 
the  water  lapped  the  sands  and  where  the  sound  of  the 
sea  would  be  more  articulate.  The  path  broke  sheerly 
off  at  a  breezy  declivity,  and  this  I  scrambled  down, 
and  came  plunging  out  on  the  sand.  And  there  the 
water  was  lapping  in  a  friendly  monotone,  and  black 
to  the  sight,  and  I  seemed  to  be  in  a  silence  with  it  and 
cries  of  the  warning  buoys,  and  above  me  were  the 
lights  on  my  lady's  balcony.  I  paced  up  and  down 
there,  at  first  mad  with  joy,  and  I  believe  I  sang  and 
called  aloud,  and  mouthed  great  lines  out  of  the  poets, 
deifying  the  sea.  And  then  I  quieted,  and  found  my- 


334  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

self  a  cavelike  indentation  of  the  shore,  and  sat  there 
in  my  solitude  like  primal  man  begun  to  be  cognizant 
of  destinies.  The  night  seemed  to  be  light  about  me 
because  the  earth  itself  was  lighted.  I  saw  into  vast 
reaches,  and  knew  that  the  final  destiny  is  not  yet, 
however  long  we  live.  And  having  seen  that  the  final 
destiny  is  not  yet,  it  was  for  the  present  enough.  I  was 
light-headed  with  the  bright  mystery  of  creation  which 
seemed  to  give  man,  in  the  end,  whatever  he  strongly 
seeks.  I  had  indeed  only  begun  to  make  my  petitions 
to  the  god  of  wishes.  I  had  desired  that  life  should 
not  be  so  tawdry  and  mean  as  it  had  been,  and  that  I 
should  put  my  hand  on  the  topmost  fruit  of  the  tree  of 
life,  which  I  had  thought  then  to  be  poesy;  but  now 
I  had  the  topmost  fruit  and  it  was  Ellen  Tracy's  love. 
Poesy  might  come,  too,  for  I  began  to  see  the  gifts  are 
endless.  You  had  only  to  desire  and  the  noiseless 
lock  of  the  treasury  slipped  and  the  treasure  lay  dis- 
closed. And  then  the  air  grew  chill,  and  I  felt  my 
clothes  were  damp,  and,  as  it  is  toward  morning,  the 
currents  of  my  life  ran  slowly,  and  it  came  upon  me 
that  though  I  had  Ellen  Tracy's  love,  another  woman, 
that  stranger  woman,  was  my  wife.  And  my  son  was 
her  son,  too,  and  we  were  pledged  to  him.  And  think- 
ing that,  I  soberly,  in  the  autumn  chill,  got  me  along 
the  country  road,  now  veiled  by  a  raw  mist,  and  so  to 
the  station  and  to  town  again. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  335 

XXXI 

AFTER  I  had  gone  home  to  Osborne  Street  and 
changed  my  clothes  and  eaten  a  giant's  breakfast  at  an 
hotel,  I  went  to  Blake's  lodgings,  and  found  him  where 
I  expected,  in  bed.  He  was  either  in  bed  till  noon 
or  working  like  a  horse,  and  this  was  one  of  the  days 
when  the  bed  had  him.  I  had  posted  up  to  him  in 
despite  of  the  loyal  slavey  who  said  he  was  to  sleep  till 
twelve,  and  found  him  under  the  clothes,  his  great 
eyes  glowering,  his  hair  a  tangled  shock.  On  the  floor 
were  some  sheets  of  thin  blue  paper  covered  with 
short  lines  in  small,  beautiful  script.  I  had  never  seen 
him  so  unkempt,  like  a  wonderful,  strong  animal  in  its 
Ian*,  and  it  came  over  me  that  it  would  be  a  brave 
woman  who  should  marry  him,  if  she  expected  the 
small  understandable  usages  of  daily  life  —  except  Mary, 
of  course.  Mary  was  the  only  one  to  marry  him, 
because  she  was  the  only  conceivable  woman  who 
would  expect  nothing.  At  once  her  name  was  on  his 
lips. 

"I  have  asked  her  to  marry  me,"  he  said,  and  I  got 
the  impression  that  having  done  it  he  was  exceedingly 
scared.  "Mary." 

I  waited,  looking  down  at  him. 

"Well,"  I  prodded.     "What's  she  say?" 

"She's  thinking  it  over,"  said  Blake. 

I  felt  as  if  I  had  great,  new  knowledge  of  women  and 
their  love  of  men.  I  felt  as  if  Blake  knew  no  more 


336  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

about  it  than  I  had  yesterday,  and  that  he  must  be  in- 
formed or  he'd  unwittingly  break  fragilities. 

"She  sets  her  life  by  you/'  I  said,  going  back,  in  my 
solemnity,  to  a  phrase  of  our  old  neighborhood. 

His  brows  knitted,  and  under  them  the  eyes  grew 
dark. 

"  Don't  tell  me  that,"  he  said,  and  I  could  have 
laughed,  for  I  saw  he  was  terrified.  He  could  ask  her 
to  marry  him,  that  he  might  buy  bread  for  her  to  eat, 
and  also  perhaps  to  satisfy  that  silent  mandate  of  her 
own  nature  which  laid  upon  him  the  bonds  of  its  devo- 
tion ;  but  if  she  loved  him  too  much,  that  he  couldn't 
face.  For  where  was  the  coin  in  his  treasury  to  redeem 
so  rich  a  guerdon?  Coined,  minted  for  Ellen  Tracy, 
and  because  she  would  have  none  of  it,  poured  into  the 
sea.  But  Mary  did  love  him  just  that  much,  the  whole 
measure  of  her  soul,  and  that  he'd  got  to  face.  Else 
where  would  she  come  out  in  this  bankrupt  bargain  ? 
I  thought  wisely  of  it  since  I  had  learned  a  great  deal 
of  the  love  that  promises  and  cannot  pay.  What  had 
I  not  promised  to  Mildred  in  that  other  springtime? 
And  what  had  I  to  pay  with  ?  We  should  see. 

"Mary  adores  you,"  I  said  obstinately.  Things  had 
gone  too  far  for  niceties  in  keeping  Mary's  secret, 
which  even  the  breezes  that  fanned  her  might  know,  it 
was  so  mirrored  in  her  honest  eyes.  "You've  got  a 
chance  to  make  her  awfully  happy." 

"I  haven't  got  it  yet,"  he  growled,  and  I  saw  that  if 
he  could  in  dignity  have  withdrawn  under  the  bed- 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  337 

clothes  he'd  have  done  it  to  escape  me.  "Go  away. 
I've  got  to  get  up." 

But  I  sat  down  hi  the  chair  by  the  bedside,  first 
removing  the  blue  paper  and  pencil  waiting  for  more 
verse,  and  holding  it  while  I  talked.  I  had  grown  sud- 
denly bold  with  him,  my  own  problem  was  so  stiff. 

"Blake,"  said  I,  "if  I  should  want  to  stay  in  Boston 
this  winter,  do  you  think  I  could  find  a  job  ?" 

"I  thought  you  were  halfway  to  Africa/7  he  said. 
"Has  that  gone  to  pot  ?" 

"I  don't  know,"  I  told  him.  "The  job  hasn't  gone 
to  pot,  if  that's  what  you  mean.  It's  mine  still  if  I'll 
take  it.  But  I  don't  know  whether  I  shall  take  it." 

"Then  you're  a  fool,"  said  Blake,  summarily.  "I 
suppose  she's  put  a  damper  on  it." 

He  never  spoke  of  Mildred  by  her  name,  but  only 
with  the  aid  of  that  half -grudging  pronoun.  He  dis- 
approved of  her,  I  had  known  for  a  long  time,  disliked 
her  heartily.  I  had  known  it,  as  I  say,  though  I  had 
not  owned  it  to  myself  ;  but  now,  at  the  pace  life  was 
taking,  I  permitted  myself  to  recognize  it  plainly. 
But  he  went  on. 

"If  you're  staying  for  sentimental  reasons,  I've 
nothing  to  say.  Every  man  has  got  to  settle  that  him- 
self. But  if  it's  money  — if  you  want  a  better  job  — 
don't  come  to  me." 

His  eye  was  straying  to  the  blue  sheets  on  the  floor. 
I  believe  he  had  caught  an  adjective  he  wanted  to  anni- 
hilate and  he  most  heartily  wished  me  elsewhere,  I 


338  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

was  the  deterrent,  the  atom  between  him  and  his  be- 
loved task.  Would  Ellen  Tracy  have  been  an  atom 
just  the  same  if  she  had  broken  a  crystal  mood  ?  And 
how  about  Mary?  But  that,  I  saw,  could  never  be. 
Mary  knew  nothing  about  moods,  but  she  would  have 
scented  them  out  as  keenly  as  if  she  did,  so  did  her  soul 
rush  in  a  glow  of  love  to  serve  the  soul  of  Blake.  She 
would  be  forever  present  with  the  bread  and  wine  of 
physical  life,  with  the  pillow  for  his  head;  but  when 
there  was  a  certain  look  in  his  eyes,  then  Mary  would 
be  forever  absent  —  silent,  breathless,  dumb.  After 
all,  if  he  had  a  big  work  to  do,  as  I  fully  believed,  hadn't 
he  a  right  to  that  passionate  service  though  he  could 
give  only  dog's  wages,  the  task  to  follow  humbly  and 
watch  him  from  an  uncomprehending  eye?  Wasn't 
the  life  of  one  woman  very  little  to  throw  into  the 
nourishment  of  a  great  poet?  I  wasn't  sure.  But 
I  was  answering  Blake. 

"I  don't  want  more  money/'  I  said.  "I  refuse  to 
have  more  than  I  can  get  without  selling  myself.  But 
I  may  have  to  cry  small  and  go  into  close  quarters. 
Could  I  get  something  on  the  dailies  here?" 

"It's  a  feather  in  your  cap  to  have  done  that  work 
in  England,"  he  said.  "Yes,  I  suppose  you  could  get 
something." 

"Then, "  I  asked  him,  "would  you  speak  to  Wadham 
about  it  —  that  is,  if  I  want  you  to  —  tell  him  the  best 
you  think  of  me,  and  see  if  he'd  give  me  a  boost  ?" 

Yes,  he  would  do  that.    We  both  knew  it  would  go 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  339 

a  long  way.  Wadham  was  hooted  in  the  courts  of 
real  literature,  if  they  ever  heard  of  him;  but  among 
the  dailies  he  was  looked  upon  as  a  conjurer  fitted  out 
with  the  formula  for  piling  the  circulation  to  the  mil- 
lions. Commercially  he  was  reverenced.  And  Wad- 
ham  in  his  turn  had  almost  a  feminine,  a  fanatical 
adoration  of  Blake,  who  could  do  the  things  Wadham 
couldn't,  —  write  poetry  and  despise  the  dollar.  It  was 
a  pretty  strong  pull.  Wadham's  former  knowledge  of 
me  might  help  or  it  might  not,  but  Blake's  recommen- 
dation would  go  far. 

So  I  left  him,  and  he  didn't  wait  for  me  to  get  out  of 
the  room  before  lunging  over  the  side  of  the  bed,  to 
change  the  adjective,  I  knew.  And  I  went  home  to 
Osborne  Street,  to  sit  down  and  think  it  all  over,  and 
then  I  meant  to  go  down  to  the  Port  and  tell  my  wife. 
To  tell  her  what  ?  That  was  what  I  had  to  think  over. 
I  didn't  know.  The  moment  I  had  closed  the  door 
behind  me  and  stood  there  in  the  hall,  absently  wonder- 
ing if  I  wanted  to  look  at  any  of  the  circulars  pushed 
through  the  letter  slit  to  the  floor,  I  knew  by  that  un- 
named sense  we  have  that  somebody  was  in  the  house. 
I  walked  softly  into  the  drawing-room.  The  drawers 
of  the  desk  were  open,  small  pictures  lay  with  their 
faces  to  the  table,  and  a  cabinet  of  rather  precious 
lacquer  was  open,  the  key  in  the  lock.  I  looked  into 
the  dining  room.  Nobody  was  there.  Then,  as  softly, 
I  went  upstairs,  to  the  guest  chamber  first  of  all.  And 
there  stood  Mildred,  her  sleeves  turned  back  from  her 


340  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

slender  arms,  folding  curtains.  Other  curtains  lay 
on  the  bed  where  she  had  piled  them.  All  the  careful 
packing  of  the  spring  was  being  overhauled.  I  think 
I  could  hardly  have  made  sound  enough  to  attract  her  ; 
but  she  too  was  drawn  by  that  sense  of  an  unexpected 
presence.  She  turned,  and  seeing  me  there  in  the  door- 
way, gave  a  little  cry.  And  then  I  knew  just  how  I  felt 
toward  her.  I  had  wondered,  on  the  way  to  the  house. 
It  had  seemed  to  me  I  must  know  exactly,  before  I  saw 
her.  Now  I  knew.  I  was  sorry  she  could  scream  at 
sight  of  me  —  for  it  was  I  particularly  and  not  because 
I  had  startled  her  —  and  that  such  a  look  of  fear  could 
throb  into  her  eyes.  I  walked  into  the  room  and  she, 
never  forgetting  to  face  me,  stepped  round  the  other 
side  of  the  bed.  It  was  a  crude,  tell-tale  movement. 
She  was  putting  something  between  us. 

"I  didn't  know  you  were  here,"  I  said. 

"No." 

Then  her  agitation  seemed  so  out  of  proportion  to 
my  coming  that  I  began  to  think,  and  I  saw  why  she 
was  there  in  this  haste  of  preparation.  She  was  going 
away,  and  she  was  packing  up  what  things  she  might 
of  those  that  had  endowed  our  house,  to  take  them 
with  her.  And  I  was  sorry  for  her.  My  heart  was  so 
low  in  me  that  this  heaviness  of  sorrow  was  all  I  could 
manage.  I  couldn't  think  of  Ellen  Tracy  or  of  that 
gigantic  passion  of  the  sea :  all  that  was  as  a  great 
goddess,  always  regnant,  always  to  be  worshipped,  but 
withdrawn  behind  a  veil  that  I  might  do  homely  tasks 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  341 

and  mend  the  kitchen  fire.  And  I  saw  my  way  plain. 
I  was  always  to  mend  the  kitchen  fire.  The  ever- 
burning altar  blaze  was  not  for  me.  Blake  and  his 
brother  poets  would  tend  that,  and  I  should  see  its 
glow,  and  worship,  too.  But  I  had  taken  upon  me  the 
homely  things  whereby  the  earth — the  earth  owned  by 
every  man,  not  the  planet  swinging  before  the  poet's 
rapt  regard  —  that  this  earth  may  live  in  cleanliness 
and  wholesome  life.  I  pointed  to  a  chair.  I  felt,  if  I 
had  taken  one  to  her  she  would  have  run  from  me 
anywhere,  like  a  distraught  animal  into  the  wall,  or 
toward  me  to  beat  upon  my  breast  with  her  impotent 
hands.  She  did  sink  into  the  chair  and  I  took  another 
and  asked  her,  trying  to  make  my  voice  the  one  she 
knew  before  our  dreadful  yesterday :  — 

"  Don't  you  think  we'd  better  leave  things  as  they 
are  till  we  pack  up  for  good  ?" 

She  gave  a  little  gasp,  still  of  fear,  I  thought,  and 
could  not  answer  me.  I  tried  again. 

"  You'll  think  I'm  a  brute,  but  I've  got  to  fight  it 
out  about  this  house.  We  can't  live  here.  We  can't 
afford  it  another  minute." 

With  necessity  her  courage  rose. 

"There's  no  question  of  my  living  here,"  she  said. 
"I'm  going  away." 

"Where  are  you  going?"  I  asked  her,  and  she  an- 
swered:— 

"I  don't  know  yet.  I  may  go  abroad.  It  doesn't 
matter  very  much  while  you're  in  Africa.  There 


342  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

couldn't  be  any  scandal.  I  think  I  shall  go  abroad  — 
with  Egerton." 

"No,"  said  I,  " you'll  not  go  abroad.  You  won't 
go  anywhere.  You'll  stay  with  me." 

"You  are  going  to  Africa,"  she  said,  and  at  once  I 
knew  what  I  had  decided. 

"I  am  not  going,"  I  told  her. 

She  gave  a  little  cry  of  what  seemed  utter  exaspera- 
tion. 

"Have  you  given  that  up  ?" 

"Yes,"  I  told  her,  and  she  asked,  "Why?"  adding, 
with  a  flooding  reproach,  "How  could  you,  a  chance 
like  that?" 

Then  I  saw,  whether  wisely  or  not,  that  there  had 
better  be  no  paltering  between  us.  At  the  moment 
of  seeing  her  I  had  realized  again  that  she  was  alien  to 
me,  a  strange  woman  with  whom  I  was  yet,  by  my  own 
vow,  condemned  to  live.  And  I  knew  at  last,  and  was 
ashamed  of  knowing,  that  she  had  a  fear  of  me.  She 
would  never  fight  out  an  issue  in  the  open,  though  she 
would  eternally  dodge  and  quibble  if  I  were  not  to 
know.  Her  apprehension  seemed  almost  as  crude  a 
thing  as  physical  fear,  and  feeling  that,  I  had  a  sickness 
of  compassion  for  her :  for  surely  it  was  terrible  that 
a  creature  of  that  delicate  poise  should  recoil  at  sight 
of  me  in  my  brutality  of  brawn.  But  things  had  got  to 
be  understood  between  us  and  on  that  understanding 
we  must  act. 

"Mildred,"  I  said,  and  at  her  name  she  glanced 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  343 

shrewdly  up,  as  if  it  showed  some  new  softness  in  me. 
"Will  you  give  Gorham  back  his  money?" 

"No." 

Her  lips  formed  the  word,  but  noiseless  though  it 
came,  she  looked  immutable. 

"Then,"  said  I,  "I've  got  to  retrench,  and  pay  it 
back  myself." 

Her  face  distorted  in  an  ugly  emotion  I  would  not 
try  to  name. 

"You  must  be  a  fool,"  she  said,  and  having  said  it 
she  stood  ready  to  fight  me  on  my  own  ground.  She 
plucked  up  argument.  "If  you  are  going  to  take  that 
on  your  shoulders,  why  do  you  give  up  the  very  con- 
tract you  could  make  money  by?" 

I  threw  out  the  shameful  truth. 

"I  can't  be  away." 

"You  mean  I  am  not  to  be  trusted?"  she  asked. 
"You've  got  to  watch  me  ?  " 

Something  broke  in  me,  and  I  found  myself  talking 
hot  and  fast. 

"  You  are  going  to  live  in  the  house  with  me  and  eat 
the  bread  I  earn  for  you.  You  are  going  to  clothe 
yourself  with  the  money  I  earn.  If  you  keep  Gorham's 
money,  you  will  keep  it  as  it  is,  intact.  You  will  give 
me  an  account  of  it  from  time  to  time.  If  I  see  by  the 
bank's  balance  that  it  has  diminished,  by  God,  I  — 
Here  I  stopped.  It  seemed  to  me  there  was  no  measure 
to  what  I  should  do.  Yet,  after  all,  what  could  I  do  ? 
I  did  not  know,  and  even  if  she  had  not  been  overborne 


344  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

at  the  moment  by  something  in  me  that  did  unmis- 
takably cow  her,  neither  could  she  have  told. 

"You  think  I  ought  to  be  punished,"  she  said,  "and 
you  have  arranged  that  for  my  punishment.  To  keep 
the  money  and  not  use  it:  that's  your  idea?" 

"I  don't  ask  you  to  keep  it,"  I  said.  "I  beg  you  not 
to.  I  beg  you  by  every  good  thing  that's  been  between 
us.  There's  the  boy-  I  stopped  here.  I  was 
desperately  moved,  and  as  she  saw  it  she  grew  colder 
and  more  easy  in  the  certainty  of  having  for  the  moment 
the  whip  hand. 

"How  have  I  hurt  the  boy  ? "  she  inquired  contempt- 
uously, and  now  the  balance  had  shifted  and  I  felt 
awkwardly  at  a  loss  before  her:  for  nothing  makes  a 
man  more  foolish  in  seeming  than  to  bring  forth  un- 
formulated  emotions  before  one  who  is  scanning  them 
judicially. 

"0  Mildred,"  I  said,  "let's  think  of  the  boy,  let's 
think  of  nothing  else.  He  can't  grow  up  in  our  atmos- 
phere and  not  get  tainted  unless  we're  square.  He 
can't  be  allowed  to  live  with  a  man  that's  a  coward  - 
and  I  should  be  a  coward  if  I  let  another  man  support 
you.  He  can't  live  with  you  - 

Her  face  sank  to  a  deeper  pallor  and  she  threw  me 
the  furtive  look  that  had  given  me  the  sickness  of  sheer 
fright.  It  seemed  to  ask  whether  I  knew  her  fully,  and 
when  it  challenged  me  thus,  my  soul  violently  denied 
that  I  could  ever  know  her,  lest  the  knowledge  should 
be  to  the  undoing  of  my  own  endurance.  Perhaps  I 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  345 

was  a  coward,  but  I  knew  I  could  fight  better  in  the 
dark.  I  felt  I  had  made  the  only  appeal  I  knew  how 
to  make  in  the  name  of  the  boy. 

" Won't  you  do  it  ?"  I  asked  her.  "Won't  you  give 
that  money  back  ?  " 

She  was  tired  of  my  persistency.  I  had  worn  her 
out,  and  now  she  had  a  hard,  metallic  No  for  me. 

"Don't  ask  me  that  again,"  she  said.  "My  money 
is  my  own,  and  I  shall  keep  it.  As  to  not  spending 
it—" 

She  paused  and  I  answered  wearily :  — 

"Yes,  you  can  spend  it,  too,  I  suppose.  It's  all  one 
if  I  pay  him  back." 

And  she  looked  as  if  again  she  could  have  called  me 
a  fool.  I  took  out  my  watch  and  summoned  again  my 
manner  of  command.  Poor  as  it  was,  it  seemed  to 
serve. 

•  "Now,"  I  said,  "we'll  put  these  things  back  or  pack 
'em  ready  to  move,  as  you  like.  For  before  October 
first  we  clear  the  house.  Shall  we  put  them  back?" 

For  a  long  time  she  seemed  to  be  considering,  her 
eyes  bent  on  her  hands  lying  in  her  lap.  She  was  mak- 
ing her  decision,  I  saw,  perhaps  for  good  and  all.  My 
gaze  followed  hers  and  fell  upon  the  blue  veining  of  her 
wrists,  for  the  hands  lay  palm  uppermost.  The  vein- 
ing  of  her  wrists  I  had  kissed  a  thousand  times.  It  had 
been  one  of  the  foolish,  dear  ceremonials  between  us, 
wherein,  I  could  see  now  with  the  added  light  of  that 
great  globe  above  me  like  another  sun,  she  had  only 


346  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

acquiesced  from  some  sad  reason  of  sex  triumphant. 
Could  I  kiss  the  channel  of  that  blood  now,  the  blood 
that  seemed  then  to  flow  inevitably  toward  me  and  now 
as  palpably  away  from  me  ?  No.  To  do  it  would  be 
the  blasphemous  ceremonial  of  a  rite  outworn.  What 
had  been  was  the  child  of  an  old  self,  and  the  old  self 
had  died.  Yet  out  of  that  mood  had  come  a  living 
creature,  infinitely  pathetic  in  that  he  looked  now  for 
his  nurture  to  two  who  could  not  generate  between 
them  the  warming  sun  of  love,  the  sheltering  cloud. 

" Mildred,"  said  I,  "can't  you  and  I  be  a  good  father 
and  mother  to  the  boy?" 

She  spoke  coldly,  and  again  as  if  she  were  tired  of 
it  all. 

"I  don't  know  why  you  should  accuse  me  of  not 
being  a  good  mother." 

"I  don't,"  I  said,  and  I  did  remember  how  healthy 
the  little  chap  looked,  how  absolutely  perfect,  like  a 
child  of  sun  and  air.  "But  I  don't  mean  that.  I  mean, 
can't  we  pitch  in  and  make  the  kind  of  atmosphere 
he  ought  to  live  in?  —  that  sort  of  thing?" 

But  now  she  was  looking  at  her  watch. 

"It  is  nearly  twelve,"  she  said.  "If  I  am  going  to 
the  Port,  I  must  telephone  for  a  cab." 

I  made  a  leap  at  domination. 

"We  won't  go  this  noon,"  I  said,  with  an  assurance 
I  didn't  feel.  "We'll  go  round  and  look  at  a  house  I 
saw  yesterday,  with  a  sign  in  the  window." 

"Where?"  she  asked. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  347 

It  was  a  modest  street,  a  sort  of  suburb  of  our  own. 
The  houses  were  small,  and  fit  because  they  were  on  an 
old  model  carefully  restored,  and  I  had  looked  at  them 
longingly,  as  dwellings  where  I  might  feel  at  ease, 
because  there  I  could  pay  my  scot  without  straining. 
And  to  my  infinite  surprise  she  actually  went  — 
doggedly,  I  thought,  but  still  with  an  outward  ac- 
quiescence. She  went  over  the  little  house  —  and  a 
good  little  house  it  was  '• —  precise  as  to  its  detail  and 
sharp-eyed  for  flaws.  We  seemed  in  these  practicali- 
ties to  have  reached  some  community  of  interest ;  but 
when  we  had  left  the  house  she  was  again  distraite,  and 
the  pall  of  silence  fell  between  us.  There  was  no  time 
for  a  leisurely  luncheon  if  we  were  to  get  a  good  train, 
and  so  I  took  her  in  a  cab  to  the  station  and  we  had 
something  there  and  were  presently  on  the  way  to  the 
Port.  I  was  glad  we  had  to  be  hurried.  The  little 
intimacies  of  a  luncheon  in  a  place  where  the  world  was 
making  a  pretence  at  delicate  enjoyment  would  have 
been  too  much  for  us.  And  at  the  Port  again  we  took 
a  cab  and  in  silence  drove  to  the  house.  There  I  left  her 
and  waiting  only  until  she  had  got  in  drove  to  the  Hills- 
dale  House  where  Gorham  made  his  home.  He  was  in, 
they  told  me,  and  my  name  was  taken  to  him,  and  im- 
mediately I  was  conducted  to  his  room.  It  was  a  wan, 
dreary  room,  transformed,  doubtless  through  the  sheer 
force  of  his  habits,  into  something  like  an  office.  He 
had  introduced  a  roll-top  desk  with  its  concomitants 
of  letter  file  and  cards  in  drawers.  I  don't  know  what 


348  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

he  catalogued,  but  I  believe  he  couldn't  live  without 
the  outward  flourishes  of  a  commercial  life.  To  say 
that  he  was  surprised  at  my  coming  is  not  enough. 
He  was  stricken  into  an  intense  discomfort,  and  through 
the  first  part  of  our  interview  remained  visibly  uneasy. 
At  once  the  telephone  bell  rang,  and  when  he  had 
taken  down  the  receiver  I  heard  my  wife's  voice.  It 
was  unmistakable.  She  was  asking  if  he  were  alone. 

"No,"  he  said,  with  the  shortness  of  embarrassment. 
"Got  a  caller." 

And  he  hung  up  summarily.     I  did  not  sit  down,  and 

because  I  would  not  he  propped  himself  by  the  mantel 

and  stood  there  looking  gloomily  into  the  grate.     I  was 

right  in  thinking  cousin  Thomas  had  greatly  changed. 

The  crude  ambition  of  his  clothes  had  altered  to  the 

unexacting  lines  of  a  business  suit  that  had  evidently 

seen  much  travel.     His  shiny  black  hair  was  too  long, 

his  tie  a  narrow  string  of  black.     Between  his  brows 

abode  the  lines  of  care.    And  he  did  not  look  at  me. 

That  was  of  no  special  importance  to  me;  but  I  did 

feel  that  he  was  suffering  an  extreme  of  nervousness. 

"Gorham,"  I  said,  "I've  come  round  to  have  a  talk." 

"Well,"  said  he,  rather  bitterly,  "spit  it  out." 

And  after  all  I  didn't  know  how  I  was  going  to  say 

it.     I  had  better  be  brief.     I  was  willing  to  give  offence. 

"You  have  lent  my  wife  some  money,"  I  said.     "It 

was  unnecessary,   but  we  won't  go  into  that.    I'm 

going  to  make  you  a  payment  on  it,  give  you  my  note 

for  the  rest,  and  tell  you  it  won't  be  necessary  again." 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  349 

He  turned  upon  me.  I  think  he  was  glad  to  have 
come  to  an  issue,  to  find  himself  up  against  a  man's 
formulae  and  escape  a  woman's  casuistry. 

"Look  here,"  he  said.  "I  didn't  lend  her  that 
money.  I  gave  it  to  her." 

"No,"  said  I.  "You  lent  it  to  us  both.  That's 
the  only  way  we  could  take  it.  That's  why  I'm  paying 
you."  ' 

He  looked  inexpressibly  haggard,  in  a  yellow  sort  of 
way,  and  baited  as  he  was,  as  if  he  were  going  to  cry. 

"Good  God!"  he  said  irritably,  not  to  God  indeed, 
but  really  to  the  snarl  of  circumstance.  "I  can't  be 
paid  back.  That  would  be  the  last  note!" 

"You  mustn't  say  that  again,  Gorham,"  I  warned 
him,  "to  me  or  anybody  else." 

"'Course  I  shan't  say  it,"  he  returned.  "Do  you 
s'pose  I  go  round  talkin'  about  a  thing  like  that  ?" 

"You  won't  say  it  to  me  again,"  I  said.  I  felt 
myself  growing  hot.  "If  you  do,  I  shall  be  obliged 
to  lick  you  as  I'd  lick  any  little  cub  for  doing  what 
he  was  forbidden." 

"Well,  I  know  you  forbid  it,"  said  he.  "Needn't 
tell  me  that."  The  worried  look  intensified.  "Do 
you  suppose  I  meant — "  And  there  he  stuck. 

So  he  had  remembered  I  forbade  it !  How  had  he 
been  persuaded  ? 

"That'll  do,  Gorham,"  I  warned  him.  "We  don't 
want  a  row  in  this  damned  boarding  house." 

But  he  was  not  afraid,  though  I  overtopped  him. 


350  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

A  little  fellow,  yet  he  would  hang  on  with  all  the 
terrier  in  him. 

"Now,  look  here,"  said  he.  "I've  thought  about 
Milly  for  years.77 

"We  won't  bring  names  into  it,"  I  said  stiffly, 
foolishly  perhaps. 

"But  we've  got  to,"  said  cousin  Tom,  screwing  up 
his  face  again.  "Milly's  all  the  world  to  me."  And 
immediately  I  felt  a  queer  tolerance  of  him,  he  seemed 
so  well-meaning  and  so  at  the  mercy  of  a  woman's 
lust  for  power.  "I've  thought  about  her  all  my  life, 
practically.  Why,  I  made  my  money  for  her.  I 
come  back,  and  she's  married,  and  I've  got  my  money 
on  my  hands.  Good  Lord  !" 

It  looked  to  him  monstrous.  Here  he  was  with 
the  initial  ambition  of  his  life  fulfilled.  He  had  stored 
his  money,  and  the  goddess  he  had  meant  to  heap  it 
before  was  removed  from  her  niche,  and  his  largess 
could  only  be  poured  out  in  the  temple  of  an  angry 
god.  I  thought  I  understood  him  in  that  minute 
better  than  I  had  in  any  of  my  approximations.  Here 
was  Mildred,  the  apex  of  his  fulfilled  desires.  He  had 
meant  to  climb  the  mountain  and  find  her  there.  He 
had  climbed,  his  gold  heavy  upon  him,  and  the  goddess 
had  demanded  tribute.  The  mandate  of  the  angry 
god  wouldn't  sound  very  terrifying  when  Mildred 
looked  upon  him  with  her  spring-tide  face.  Had  he, 
who  had  thought  business  dilemmas  were  the  only 
knots  in  life,  found  himself  up  against  life  itself  ?  Why 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  351 

did  he  have  that  look  of  downfall  and  decay?  I  was 
sorry  for  the  man  in  him  gone  to  blank  ruin  and  regret. 

"The  one  thing  you've  got  to  do,"  I  said,  "is  to 
give  me  your  word  of  honor  you  won't  give  or  lend 
to  my  family  anything  that  is  yours  —  either  your 
checks  or  your  bank  stock  or  your  motor  or  your 
chauffeurs.  You've  got  to  accept  us  as  acquaintances 
who,  from  some  inherited  prejudice,  are  going  on  their 
own.  And  frankly,  since  you  may  find  it  hard  to 
withhold  your  hand,  you'd  better  cut  us  altogether." 

He  was  looking  at  the  grate  again  thoughtfully  and 
as  if  we  were  settling  the  most  definite  and  weighty 
of  business  propositions  —  business  always.  He  looked 
up  at  me  sharply.  "Forbid  me  the  house  ?"  he  asked. 

"We're  going  to  move,"  I  said.  "I  suggest  that 
you  cut  us.  That's  all." 

I  sat  down  at  his  table  now  and  made  him  out  a 
check  for  as  much  as  I  could  well  afford,  for  the 
moment,  a  broad  slice  out  of  my  three  months'  pay. 
I  also  signed  my  note  for  the  remainder  of  the  sum  put 
to  Mildred's  credit  and  passed  him  the  slips  together. 

"There,"  I  said.     "That  square?" 

He  took  the  paper  waveringly,  miserably  indeed ; 
but  I  didn't  stay  to  debate  his  hesitancies. 

"That's  all,"  I  said,  and  I  opened  the  door  and  shut 
it  after  me  before  he  could  reply.  But  when  I  was 
down  three  steps,  he  had  flung  open  the  door  and 
called  to  me.  He  was  yellow  with  some  emotion  that 
seemed  to  do  with  a  desire  to  placate. 


352  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"See  here/'  he  said,  "come  back  a  minute." 

I  did  go  back.     He  shut  the  door  again. 

"See  here,"  said  he  —  it  was  a  phrase  that  seemed 
to  start  him  —  "you  think  Milly  hadn't  ought  to  have 
taken  that  ?  If  I  thought  I'd  made  trouble  for  Milly  —  " 

"Make  your  mind  easy,"  I  said  curtly.  "You've 
made  no  trouble  —  none  you  can  save  her  from." 

He  was  considering  miserably. 

"I  meant  well  by  Milly,"  he  said,  shaking  his  head 
over  his  own  mischance  and  much  moved  for  her. 
"I  never  thought  it  would  come  to  this." 

"You've  simply  been  a  fool."     I  had  an  angry  pity 
for  him,  a  desire  to  bid  him  put  the  earth  between  us 
and  forget.     But  all  I  could  say  was  this  again,  - 
"You're  a  fool,  a  fool." 

And  I  left  him  staring  down  at  my  back,  I  could 
believe,  and  tramped  away. 

Yet  what  had  she  asked  me  in  the  first  moment  of 
betrayal?  "Do  you  accuse  me?"  The  words  had 
poisoned  me,  and  the  poison  gave  me,  I  believed,  that 
same  sense  of  sick  dismay  I  had  seen  in  the  man  I 
called  a  fool. 


XXXII 

MY  hit  in  England  served  me  well,  and  so  did  Blake's 
and  Wadham's  clever  offices.  I  got  a  job  on  one  of 
the  big  dailies,  an  editorial  stunt  that  would  keep 
me  awake  to  the  farthest  stretch  of  my  powers.  I 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  353 

couldn't  say  I  "didn't  much  care  if  there  was  dis- 
affection in  Persia  so  long  as  the  sunset  held  red/'  as 
Blake  had  been  known  to  say,  and  as  I  truly  used  to 
feel.  Whether  the  modern  game  was  big  or  little,  of 
vast  import  or  a  brief  skirmish  for  place  and  power, 
I  was  in  for  playing  it.  When  I  told  Mildred  I'd  got 
my  job,  she  showed  a  decent  interest.  That  was  all 
I  could  expect  of  her.  She  couldn't  know  that  if  I 
hadn't  walked  into  that  warm  pocket  of  a  place  I 
should  have  been  as  desperate  as  a  starving  rat.  For 
I  had  that  big  necessity  on  my  shoulders  to  release  her 
and  to  release  myself  from  all  slightest  obligation  to 
cousin  Thomas;  meantime  she  and  the  child  had 
to  be  fed.  I  had  taken  the  little  house,  this  in  a  haste, 
the  strange  twin  to  that  of  our  beginnings  when  I  had 
leased  the  one  on  Osborne  Street.  It  was  I  who  did 
the  moving.  Mildred,  at  that  juncture,  had  seemed 
to  falter  and  give  out  in  a  sudden  way,  and  I  urged 
her  to  go  down  to  a  quiet  hotel  by  the  sea  for  the  last 
autumn  days,  she  and  the  boy,  and  let  me  set  up  our 
gods  alone.  She  did  it  without  question,  in  great 
relief,  it  seemed  to  me.  Perhaps  she  really  could  not 
bear  the  strain  of  seeing  our  belongings  go  out  of  the 
big  house  and  into  the  little  one.  I  would  do  the  best 
I  could,  I  told  her,  to  get  the  furniture  placed  as  she 
would  have  it,  and  when  she  came  back  she  could 
shift  it  round  again.  To  this  she  assented,  more  than 
half  indifferently.  I  had  an  idea  that  she  perhaps 
never  cared  for  houses  in  that  intimate,  unreasoning 


354  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

way  women  have,  though  she  knew  so  unerringly  how 
to  clothe  and  coax  them  into  harmony.  And  since 
the  little,  common  house  where  we  were  going  was  not 
likely  to  attract  our  social  betters,  she  had  no  interest 
in  it  at  all.  But  here,  in  a  sense,  I  wronged  her,  for 
when  she  came  back  she  did  shake  it  into  the  best 
shape  possible,  though  without  eagerness  of  pleasure. 
She  had  a  dutiful  sense  of  the  exactions  of  civilized 
life.  That  never  failed  her. 

One  late  afternoon  while  she  was  still  away  and  the 
furniture  stood  about  like  friendly  visitants  come  to 
afternoon  tea  and  trying  to  recall  a  past  association, 
I  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  dining  room  and  wondered 
whether  I  was  accomplished  enough  to  unpack  the 
china  and  set  it  up.  There  were  no  expert  movers' 
services  for  me  this  voyage.  I  was  saving  even  my 
small  change  for  cousin  Thomas.  The  current  of  my 
thought  shifted  from  the  china  as  I  noted  the  space 
between  the  windows  where  the  magnificent  sideboard 
spread  too  far.  I  laughed  a  little,  softly,  remember- 
ing the  dear  philistine  oak  one  still  in  storage.  I 
wondered  whether  we  might  not  sell  this  inlaid  monarch 
of  a  thing,  this  dignified  reproach  to  our  humbler 
state,  and  bring  in  that  kind  reminder  of  the  love  of 
friends.  No,  it  wouldn't  do.  It  would  jar  the  reverend 
chairs  and  table  until  they  might  forget  their  mor- 
tising and  fall  apart.  Besides  I  wasn't  prepared  to 
call  upon  Mildred  to  suffer  daily  wretchedness  of  that 
sort.  I  might  take  away  her  high  affiliations,  but  I 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  355 

wouldn't  thrust  her  into  the  abyss  with  an  oak  side- 
board. And  while  I  smiled  at  my  own  philistine  taste 
and  the  diversity  of  the  gods  we  worshipped,  again 
out  of  the  wrong  side  of  my  mouth,  there  was  a  ring 
at  the  door,  which  was  ajar,  and  having  thus  announced 
herself,  in  walked  Mary. 

"I  saw  you  through  the  window,"  she  said.  "I 
knew  you  were  alone  by  the  way  you  looked." 

If  ever  I  wanted  to  take  comfort  and  kindliness 
into  my  arms,  I  wanted  at  that  moment  to  take  Mary 
in  her  shabby  dress.  It  is  the  height  of  midsummer 
poetry  to  talk  about  " queen  lily  and  rose  in  one." 
Mary  was  aunt  and  mother  in  one,  and  that,  when  you 
are  moving  to  a  house  your  wife  despises,  is  a  tonic  to 
the  soul.  But  I  didn't  spill  over  with  my  grateful 
redundancies.  I  just  took  her  bag,  no  doubt  stuffed 
full  with  work  to  be  done  after  hours,  and  made  her 
sit  down  in  a  chair  strayed  from  reception  days  and 
looking  very  haughty  inside  such  modest  walls.  Mary 
glanced  about  her  with  a  practical  eye. 

"  Looks  as  if  I  could  give  you  a  hand  here,"  she 
said.  "What's  in  that  box?  china?" 

Oh,  yes,  it  was  china,  but  that  wasn't  Mary's  busi- 
ness. She  was  too  tired. 

"Sit  there  a  minute,"  I  told  her,  "and  we'll  go  to 
dinner  somewhere." 

But  a  quite  animating  red  had  run  into  her  cheeks. 
She  unpinned  her  hat  and  carefully  turned  back  her 
cuffs. 


356  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"You  let  me  help',"  said  she.  "I  should  admire  to. 
It  drives  me  just  crazy  to  fix  up  a  house.  I  helped 
aunt  Cely  to  break  up ;  though  that  was  kind  of  sad. 
But  this  settling  business  !"  She  looked  as  if  nothing 
could  be  more  delirious. 

I  let  her  do  it.  Indeed  you  couldn't  have  stopped 
her.  Time  was  when  some  stiff  propriety  might  have 
told  me  that  Mildred  wouldn't  want  another  woman 
disposing  her  cups  on  their  shelves.  Diaphanous 
scruples  of  that  sort  had  passed,  with  scores  of  other 
things.  I  even  thought  that  Mildred  might  be  prac- 
tically glad  to  have  the  deed  done,  no  matter  by 
whose  hand,  and  I  also  considered,  with  a  very  real 
emotion,  that  if  any  hands  could  bring  a  consecration 
to  this  little  makeshift  house,  the  hands  were  Mary's. 
So  she  stood  at  the  cupboard  and  I  unpacked  dishes 
and  passed  them  to  her,  and  she  wiped  them  and  set 
them  up  and  we  talked  happily. 

"I  suppose  they  ought  to  be  washed,  by  good  rights," 
said  Mary,  "but  I'll  give  'em  a  lick  and  a  promise 
now,  and  we'll  just  get  'em  in  so  you'll  know  where 
you  are." 

With  the  last  light  of  sunset  they  were  all  in  handy 
places,  and  I  could  breathe.  Tables  and  chairs  I 
knew  how  to  tackle,  as  being  more  a  man's  size. 

"Now,"  said  I,  "time's  up.     We'll  go  to  dinner." 

So  we  washed  our  hands  and  wiped  them  on  a 
corner  of  the  towel  Mary  had  been  using,  and  got 
quite  merry  over  it.  I  began  to  feel  as  if  there  were 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  357 

some  gay  spots  in  houses,  after  all.  But  when  Mary 
had  pinned  on  her  hat,  and  I  was  waiting  for  her,  I 
could  see  she  was  very  grave  indeed. 

"Oh,  dear!"  said  she,  "I  haven't  said  a  word  I 
came  to  say."  \ 

I  sat  down  at  once,  leaving  her  to  do  it  after  me  as 
the  best  persuasion  I  could  offer  that  I  wasn't  in  a 
hurry.  It  was  something,  I  could  see,  that  couldn't 
be  said  as  we  went  along.  Mary  sat  down  and  took 
a  letter  from  her  bag.  It  was  stamped  and  ready  for 
the  post,  and  she  kept  looking  at  it  thoughtfully. 

^This,"  she  said,  "is  to  Mr.  Blake." 

I  knew  what  it  was.  It  was  an  answer  to  that 
half  savage,  half  pathetic  cry  of  his,  "I  have  asked 
Mary  to  marry  me." 

"You  haven't  been  in  a  hurry  to  answer  him,"  I 
said,  not  knowing  how  far  she  meant  to  let  me  in. 
"Mustn't  keep  a  poet  in  suspense,  Mary.  It's  bad 
for  him." 

"I  couldn't  help  that,"  said  Mary.  Her  eyes  were 
sadly  troubled,  and  yet  they  looked  as  if  she  had 
known  what  she  was  about.  "I've  told  him  No." 

"The  dickens  you  have  !"  I  said.  I  was  half  hurt 
for  him  and  terribly  sorry  for  her  who  was  losing 
him. 

"I  want  to  put  it  to  you,"  she  went  on,  "whether 
I  haven't  done  right.  He  doesn't  —  love  me."  This 
she  said  with  a  gentlest  dignity  that  admitted  no 
argument  from  me. 


358  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

"You're  dear  to  him,  Mary,"  I  said,  "most  awfully 
dear." 

"I  know  it,"  said  she.  "So  I  am  to  you.  We've 
weathered  a  good  many  gales  together,  all  of  us.  But 
that  isn't  —  love." 

This,  too,  she  said  with  an  indescribable  beauty  of 
emphasis.  It  was  as  if  all  her  lifelong  pondering  upon 
the  hunger  of  the  heart  had  run  into  the  one  word 
and  made  it  bloom. 

"But,"  I  said  —  for  I  wanted,  if  I  could,  to  push 
Mary  inside  the  door  of  heart's  content  —  "we're 
none  of  us  under  thirty.  We  don't  demand  the  same 
things—  " 

"Don't  we?"   asked  Mary,  in  a  flash. 

"I  mean,"  I  stumbled  on,  "there  is  a  kind  of  affec- 
tion quite  different  from  first  love.  It's  well  worth 
having.  It's  a  warm,  sweet  thing.  He  could  give 
you  that,  Mary.  It  would  never  fail  you." 

"Would  you  take  it  in  my  place?"  she  countered. 
"Would  you?" 

"No,"  I  said. 

She  smiled  at  me.    I  had  contented  her. 

"That's  it,"  she  owned.  "I  can't  let  him  give  me 
anything  less  than  the  best.  It  isn't  because  I'm 
proud.  I'd  be  glad  and  thankful  to  die  for  him  this 
minute.  But  it  would  be  bad  for  him.  Why,  Mr. 
Redfield,  you  know  it  would." 

I  did  know  it.  I  knew  Blake  had  got  to  keep  to 
his  own  hard  pallet  of  Life,  his  bread  and  water  of  the 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  359 

untarnished  will.  So  only  could  he  write  his  verse. 
I  could  see  Mary  padding  his  cell  of  caged  affection : 
but  it  would  be  a  cell.  This  was  a  bird  of  the  air, 
an  eagle.  If  he  had  found  his  true  mate,  and  they  had 
together  made  their  eyrie,  the  air  would  still  have  been 
his  home.  We  would  not  chain  him  to  a  perch.  But 
there  was  Mary,  too,  to  think  of.  I  couldn't  shut  the 
door  of  paradise  on  her.  She  was  trying  to  shut  it 
and  I  was  keeping  it  open  with  my  toe. 

"He'll  be  awfully  forlorn,"  I  said. 

"  Well,"  said  Mary,  quickly,  as  if  she'd  thought  it  out, 
"men  of  that  kind  have  got  to  be.  So  far  as  I  can  see, 
he's  got  to  be  lonesome  and  he's  got  to  be  poor  and  he's 
got  to  grow  old.  But  he'll  have  his  poetry.  You  said 
that  yourself." 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "he'll  have  his  poetry." 

"And  if  I  let  him  do  a  thing  like  that — what  he 
asked  me,  you  know — he'd  be  stepping  down.  He 
wouldn't  be  the  same  man.  And  it  would  eat  into  him. 
And  that  would  hurt  his  poetry,  now  wouldn't  it?" 

How  earnest  she  was  I  cannot  describe.  This  was  the 
biggest  thing  that  had  ever  come  to  her,  and  she  was 
meeting  it  with  all  the  brain  and  all  the  will  and  all  the 
love  she  had.  "Now  isn't  it  so  ? "  she  insisted.  "Don't 
you  think  I'm  right?" 

Well,  I  did  think  she  was  right.  Blake  was  our 
knight  peerless.  We  wouldn't  take  him  off  his  horse, 
even  though  it  was  to  set  him  down  to  a  well-filled 
trencher  with  a  kind  maid  to  wait  upon  him.  He  should 


360  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

go  out  into  briery  ways  and  suffer  hunger,  if  need  were, 
and  thirst  and  cold.  But  he  should  go  singing. 

"Then,"  said  Mary,  "I'll  mail  my  letter.  Now  let's 
start.  You're  hungry  as  a  bear." 

And  having  consigned  our  knight  to  exile,  we  set 
out,  our  hearts  very  warm  toward  each  other  and  the 
pathetic  world.  And  in  the  west  above  the  rose-flush 
there  was  a  star,  and  it  came  to  me  that  this  might  be 
the  star  that  had  led  the  dancing  measure  when  I  had 
written  my  nuptial  song,  and  the  sight  of  it  shook 
me  to  my  soul.  For  it  had  a  message  for  me  still. 
The  other  day  was  dead,  and  the  woman  for  whom  I 
wrote  the  nuptial  song  loved  me  no  more  and  perhaps 
had  never  loved  me.  But  the  star  still  lived,  and 
love  lived  in  an  imperishable  splendor,  flung  to  me 
from  the  star.  The  world  was  full  of  lovers,  some 
false,  but  many  true.  And  Ellen  Tracy  was  in  the 
world,  as  shining  as  the  star.  Indeed,  it  seemed  to 
me  that  there  was  a  beaming  pathway  from  the  star 
straight  down  to  her,  and  my  love,  if  it  were  great 
enough,  might  climb  upon  it.  And  though  we  had 
turned  Blake  into  exile,  and  cut  Mary  off  from  the 
task  she  longed  for,  sheer  humble  service  for  him, 
even  he  didn't  seem  to  me  forlorn,  but  rather  crowned 
by  his  great,  lone  destiny.  And  Mary  and  I  didn't 
seem  forlorn,  though  we  were  a  little  like  two  babes 
in  the  wood  unfriended  by  roofs  and  walls.  For  she 
had  shot  her  arrow  at  the  gold  of  the  supreme  right, 
and  after  that  there's  very  little  more  that  you  can 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  361 

have.  And  I,  though  I  might  never  set  my  lips  to 
love,  had  the  star  and  Ellen  Tracy.  But  of  Mildred  I 
did  not  think  at  all. 


XXXIII 

I  UNDERSTOOD  perfectly  that  I  was  not  to  see  Ellen 
Tracy,  and  for  a  time  the  prohibition  looked  easy.  We 
all  know  what  it  is  when  the  beloved  have  just  left 
the  room  in  our  house  of  life.  Something  of  their 
aura  remains  behind.  There  is  the  trembling  of  the 
draperies  moved  by  the  wind  of  their  departing. 
The  air  is  still  in  rhythm  from  their  motions.  The 
scent  of  their  divinity  is  upon  the  breeze.  It  seems 
easy  to  live  without  them  and  fulfil  their  biddings,  to 
such  an  exalted  obedience  have  they  left  us.  But 
the  room  settles  down  to  its  impersonal  calm.  It 
forgets.  It  responds  to  other  visitants.  Then  we 
know  we  are  bereft. 

For  a  time  I  was  superbly  indifferent  to  any  warmer 
need  than  that  of  fulfilling  the  highest  will  of  Ellen 
Tracy.  Then  the  virtue  went  out  of  me,  and  I  knew 
I  was  alone.  I  harbored  a  bitter  reproach  of  her, 
because  I  believed  that  if  she  had  not  cast  me  out  of 
her  thought,  I  should  have  got  news  of  her  by  the 
underground  service  of  according  minds.  I  had,  I 
see  now,  felt  very  righteous  toward  Mildred,  whom  I 
had  been  upholding  to  an  ideal  of  conduct  imposed 
upon  us  both;  but  now,  in  my  desolation,  I  recog- 


362  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

nized  a  childish  need  of  her.  I  could  have  laughed 
to  think  of  it.  I  did  laugh  sometimes  in  a  wry  fashion, 
as  they  say,  "out  of  the  other  side  of  my  mouth." 
For  the  ironies  of  life  were  pretty  hard  upon  us  both. 
Here  were  we,  pent  up  together  to  live  out  our  span  of 
years.  I  regarded  another  woman  with  an  adoring 
worship,  every  voice  within  me  crying  out  louder  and 
louder  every  day  to  go  to  her  and  telling  me  with  the 
sound  of  many  trumpets  that  it  was  righteous  for 
me  to  go,  and  I  was  living  in  the  intimacy  of  home  with 
the  woman  who  did  not  love  me,  who  could  not,  per- 
haps, love  any  man,  but  who  had  a  fierce  ingrained 
desire  to  establish  herself  in  the  world.  It  was  like 
the  tiger's  steel-sinewed  fight  to  live.  She  was,  I  had 
learned,  a  creature  of  a  cool  virginity;  but  I  believed 
she  would  sell  herself  to  climb  to  the  apex  of  social 
life.  Whether  she  had  sold  herself,  I  could  not  let 
myself  think;  but  sometimes  I  woke  at  night,  that 
question  of  hers  hissing  into  my  ears  like  an  ever- 
wakeful  snake.  Sometimes  after  the  snake  had  hissed 
at  me  and  I  lay  there  hot  under  a  man's  abased  sense 
of  a  home  invaded  and  his  son's  inheritance  shattered, 
I  would  hear  her  stirring  in  the  next  room,  doing  some- 
thing for  the  boy,  and  I  had  to  wonder  whether  she 
loved  him.  But  she  was  a  perfect  mother.  The 
visitors  all  said  so,  though  there  were  fewer  of  them 
now.  Miss  Harpinger's  contingent  had  dropped  off 
when  we  moved  into  a  humbler  house,  but  the  dear 
old  church  people  kept  on  coming.  Some  came  who 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  363 

had  never  come  before.  I  believe  they  had  guessed 
at  our  fallen  fortunes  and  sought  us  out  because  of 
them.  I  loved  them  for  it.  It  seemed  to  me  they 
would  help  Mildred's  social  soul  to  live,  now  she  was 
stranded  on  her  island  of  discontent.  I  didn't  mind 
now  whether  they  asked  me  why  I  wasn't  doing  my 
beautiful  dialect  stories.  I  replied  quite  humbly,  and 
even  said  I  might  sometime;  and  one  day  when  a 
warm-hearted  pack  of  them  had  gone  I  said  to  Mildred, 
in  my  gratitude  for  their  upholding,  "  Almost  thou 
persuadest  me  to  be  a  Unitarian." 

But  she  looked  at  me  seriously  and  said,  with  a 
musing  doubt  in  her  tone:  — 

"I've  been  thinking  of  leaving  Doctor  Everest's  and 
going  to  Saint  Jerome's." 

"For  God's  sake,  why?"  I  said,  accepting  my  be- 
lated cup  of  tea.  I  had  been  so  eagerly  and  ingratiat- 
ingly entertaining,  and  had  passed  so  many  cups  to 
ladies  I  hoped  would  come  again  and  please  Mildred, 
that  I  had  forgotten  to  take  any  sustenance  of  my  own. 
"You  aren't  changing  your  creed,  are  you?" 

She  was  looking  past  me  and  deliberating,  on  creeds, 
I  innocently  thought. 

"You  see,"  she  said,  "we  made  a  mistake.  If  we 
had  gone  to  Saint  Jerome's  in  the  first  place,  I  should 
have  got  into  the  charities  there.  I  should  have  known 
a  set  of  people  I  never  shall  know  now,  living  as  we 
are — "  She  stopped  abruptly,  and  left  the  room.  I 
had  guessed  she  had  made  a  resolve  not  to  complain 


364  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

of  our  humbler  style  of  living,  this  when  she  accepted 
it,  and  she  had  never  broken  through.  There  were 
some  admirable  things  about  Mildred. 

This  need  of  mine  for  Ellen  Tracy,  whom  I  loved,  and 
of  Mildred,  whom  I  didn't  love,  were  strangely,  tiringly 
blended  in  me.  My  path  to  Ellen  Tracy  was  straight 
as  a  beam  of  light.  I  could  see  every  inch  of  the  ra- 
diant way  until  it  found  me  in  her  arms,  as  I  was,  I 
knew,  locked  in  her  heart  But  my  need  of  Mildred 
was  a  curious  thing.  Our  interests,  in  all  the  outward 
issues  of  life,  were  identical.  She  assured  me  of  my 
comfort.  I  made  for  her  protection.  We  had  the 
converging  interest  of  our  son.  I  frankly  needed  her 
to  be  kind  to  me.  I  couldn't  bear  to  live  in  the  deso- 
lation of  her  lack  of  favor.  My  hearth  was  swept,  but 
it  was  not  warm.  I  sometimes  thought  if  we  could 
get  into  the  depths  of  each  others'  minds  we  should 
not  have  been  so  poor.  If  she  could  have  told  me 
whether  I  was  to  think  her  stained  or  clean,  and  I 
could  have  believed  her,  if  I  could  have  set  her  appre- 
hensive mind  at  rest  by  saying,  "I  shall  never  offer 
you  my  love  again ;  it  has  gone  beyond  my  will  to  fet- 
ter,"—  if  we  could  have  talked  over  the  inchoate  busi- 
ness of  our  lives  with  the  perfect  frankness  of  business 
partners  —  then,  I  felt,  we  should  neither  of  us  have 
felt  so  desolate.  But  in  this  community  of  speech 
touching  my  defection  and  her  defection  of  another 
sort  there  seemed  to  be  an  indecency  I  couldn't  face, 
even  if  we  could  have  compassed  it.  For  there  was 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  365 

young  Egerton  Redfield,  looking  at  us  now  impartially 
with  the  calm,  glad  eyes  of  perfect  health,  and  saying 
virtually,  "What  a  nice,  warm,  milky  bready  world 
you  have  created  for  me,  you  two  old  dears.  What 
a  high  time  we  shall  have  when  I  grow  up,  and  we  can 
all  three  sit  down  and  talk  it  over.  We  could  now, 
except  that  I'm  not  speaking  your  eccentric  language." 
How  in  the  face  of  his  wholesale  acceptance  of  us,  could 
I  say  to  Mildred,  "I  don't  love  you.  I  am  awake 
night  and  day  with  mad  desire  for  one  who  is  not  you. 
I  am  trying  to  think  I  am  waiting  to  possess  her  in  para- 
dise; but  I  want  to  possess  her  now"?  How  could 
Mildred  make  to  me  that  other  sad  confession  the  ques- 
tion told  me  she  could  make,  not  that  she  was  a  wanton 
through  the  beguiling  of  her  blood,  but  that  she  had 
overthrown  a  decent  man's  intention  to  keep  his  word  ? 
No.  Egerton  had  us  quite  under  his  tiny  thumb.  I 
found  at  that  time  that  the  god  I  worshipped  regularly 
was  decency,  plain  decency.  I  loved  the  little,  common 
ways  of  life  with  an  ache  in  my  throat.  I  loved  to 
see  the  man  in  the  street  sitting  down  to  his  dull  dinner 
on  the  sidewalk,  because  I  knew  dutiful  hands  had 
packed  it  in  its  pail.  They  might  not  have  been  loving 
hands,  but  'they  were  worn  hands  that  were,  uncon- 
sciously to  themselves,  but  with  the  patience  of  in- 
herited habit,  holding  up  the  roof  of  the  edifice  we  have 
built  to  live  in.  I  had  at  times  wild  impulses  to  tell 
Mildred  she  might  leave  me  and  I  would  still  support 
her.  That  would  set  her  free  from  what  I  could  but 


366  MY  LOVE  AND   I 

feel  was  my  reproachful  presence.  It  would  free  her 
breath  that  came  so  dutifully  calm  while  we  had  our 
commonplaces  of  talk.  But  was  it  to  leave  her  free  ? 
I  knew  it  was  not,  in  that  soul  within  my  soul  that  still 
told  me  the  truth  when  I  would  listen  to  it.  It  was  so 
that  I  might,  with  less  reproach  from  Ellen  Tracy, 
invade  my  lady's  heart,  even  her  domain  of  thought 
by  letters  only,  and  pour  my  passion  out  upon  the  page. 

But  after  I  had  been  thinking  these  things  out  for 
a  day  or  two  and  was  on  the  brink  of  the  abyss  of  wild 
disclosure,  young  Egerton  would  put  his  head  against 
his  mother's  arm,  and  she  would  bend  her  pale  cheek 
down  to  him,  and  they  made  the  world-old  picture  of 
the  Mother  and  the  Child.  And  I  would  turn  my 
forces  of  revolt  upon  myself  and  ask  what  flowering 
of  my  passion  —  which,  I  surely  knew,  had  roots 
within  the  deepest  earth  —  could  compensate  me  for 
seeing  my  little  son  begin  his  life  with  a  stained  inheri- 
tance? While  he  drank  his  milk  and  went  out  to  re- 
gard the  world  with  his  arrogant  baby  stare,  we  should 
be  preparing  this  tawdry  fardel  for  him  to  take  upon 
his  young  shoulders  and  bear  through  all  his  life.  And 
then  I  would  go  tamely  off  to  work,  the  give-and-take 
of  arduous  days  among  men  cleverer  than  I  with  a 
devilish  up-to-date  appositeness,  and  for  days  again 
Ellen  Tracy,  to  my  tired  and  tamed  endurance,  would 
seem  but  as  a  miniature  I  wore  within  my  breast. 

Of  the  more  tumultuous  days  verse  came  and  was 
still-born.  When  I  lay  in  my  bed  looking  at  Orion, 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  367 

the  king  of  the  heavens,  measured  lines  beat  into  my 
brain.  They  were  sonnets,  all  but  complete,  and  they 
were,  as  I  could  catch  at  the  cloak  of  beauty  fugitive, 
the  soul  and  flesh  of  Ellen  Tracy.  They  sang  of  her, 
her  hair,  her  eyes,  her  body  which  was  mine,  through 
earth's  determinate  word,  and  her  dear  soul  that  sat 
inviolate  to  guard  the  gates.  But  I  never  wrote  those 
sonnets  down.  I  let  them  pass,  like  beautiful  birds 
flying  rhythmically,  the  sun  upon  their  wings.  Some- 
times they  stooped  to  me  divinely.  They  hovered, 
brooded.  Sometimes  even  the  silence  had  a  voice,  and 
questioned  whether  they  were  not  to  stay.  I  even 
thought  they  were  saddened  because  I  would  not  hold 
them  by  one  pinion,  and  put  them  in  the  gilded  cage 
of  print  to  sing  for  immortality.  Sometimes  I  ago- 
nized in  doubt  whether  I  had  authority  to  fan  the  flight 
of  wings  so  beautiful.  But  Ellen  Tracy  seemed  to 
have  laid  bonds  upon  me.  They  were  stronger  and 
stronger  as  the  time  of  my  exile  from  her  dragged  along, 
as  if  I  too  were  augmenting  them  by  welding  of  my  own. 
I  thought  I  saw  dimly  what  I  was  here  for,  in  this 
toilsome  world,  or  what,  being  here,  I  was  to  do.  I 
was  to  do  the  simple,  honest  tasks.  I  was  to  feed  my 
wife  and  child,  to  uphold  the  sane  decency  of  the  cove- 
nant we  had  entered  into.  If  I  had  strength  beyond 
this  for  warmer  deeds,  deeds  all  red  and  gold  with 
blazonry,  incredibly  happier  I.  But  I  must  see  to  the 
stability  of  my  own  house.  I  must  look  to  its  founda- 
tions, and  until  they  were  laid,  I  couldn't  go  any  higher. 


368  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

If  Almighty  God  wanted  His  poems  written,  he  would 
send  angels  with  pens  and  angels  with  trumpets,  and 
angels  with  authority  to  command  the  trumpets  to 
blow  and  the  pens  to  write.  I,  Martin  Redfield,  had 
to  take  care  of  my  wife  and  child. 

XXXIV 

THIS  chapter  is  about  literature,  and  the  reader  who 
has  a  vague  yet  confident  impression  that  literature 
is  the  cupboard  where  you  find  reading  for  an  idle  hour, 
or  a  tool  for  cramming  on  special  subjects,  a  cinch  for 
getting  a  livelihood  or  seeming  brighter  than  your 
neighbors,  had  better  skip  it,  unregretfully.  He  won't 
in  the  least  understand  what  I  am  going  to  say,  not 
because  it  is  so  profound  —  for  it  is  self-evident  —  but 
because  it  is  a  certainty  bred  in  an  atmosphere  that  is 
foreign  to  him.  I  understand  that  the  atmospheres 
of  different  planets  are  of  unlike  densities,  and  it  is 
therefore  plain  that  a  being  bred  in  one  density  could 
not  live  in  another,  if  he  were  transported  to  it.  This 
is  not  to  the  discredit  of  his  apparatus  for  living.  He 
is  calculated  for  one  environment  and  might  as  easily 
have  been  turned  out  for  another.  Only  he  wasn't. 
Therefore  you  who  accept  the  making  of  books  as  one 
of  the  industries,  prolific  in  praise,  passez  outre,  as  saith 
the  prince  of  women  warriors,  Jeanne  d'Arc.  There 
is  nothing  for  you  here. 

It  is  to  be  understood,  first  of  all,  that  certain  men 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  369 

and  women  have  a  passion  for  the  arts,  for  music, 
painting,  and  the  printed  word.  Genius  is  something 
more  than  the  capacity  for  taking  pains.  We  take 
pains  because  the  something  more  is  there :  the  fervid 
aptitude  that,  in  its  extreme,  is  passion.  It  is  the 
passion  for  the  written  word  that  makes  what  we  call 
the  literary  man.  Words  are  sentient  creatures  to 
him.  He  regards  them  with  the  unreasoning  love  the 
bibliophile  has  for  even  the  backs  of  books.  It  is  a 
besetment,  a  fantasy,  if  you  will  —  all  the  manifesta- 
tions of  a  tremendous  aptitude.  It  hurts  him  if  you 
fall  down  upon  a  false  quantity;  he  is  even  undone 
when  a  comma  is  misplaced.  His  mind  is  ever  upon 
the  highest  planes  of  attainment,  where  sound  and 
sense  accord  in  that  inevitable  beauty  which  comes 
we  knew  not  whence,  but  is  of  God.  Some  men  are 
born  to  such  a  mastery  of  the  word,  such  a  recognition 
of  their  own  passion  for  it,  that  we  name  them  master. 
Such  was  Blake.  He  came  into  his  vocation  full- 
fledged.  I  came  more  slowly.  At  first,  as  I  have  said, 
life  beguiled  me.  But  the  form  of  beautiful  words 
wrought  upon  me  more  and  more  until  I  was  like  the 
shepherd  on  the  mountain  who,  guessing  at  the  shapes 
of  gods  in  clouds  and  nymphs  in  watercourses,  comes 
down  to  ancient  Athens  and  sees  the  gods  in  stone. 
He  learns  the  worship  of  the  god  in  marble,  the  lan- 
guage man  has  chosen  for  saying  to  other  men,  "This 
is  the  god  defined."  The  cloudy  god  may  be  the  real 
one ;  but  he  slips  away,  the  night  can  banish  him.  But 

2B 


370  .  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

once  get  the  god  into  marble  and  you  have  him  for  all 
time,  and  your  children  shall  inherit  him.  So  with 
the  wonder  of  the  earth  and  the  affairs  of  man.  You 
are  knocked  down  by  them,  their  delightsomeness, 
their  mystic  value.  And  then  you  learn  they  can  be 
reproduced  in  words,  and  it  makes  a  new  music  for  you, 
and  that  is  literature.  It  is  life,  warm  life,  poured 
into  lovely  molds. 

Now  this  matter  of  literature  is  of  the  greatest  impor- 
tance. It  is  important  that  the  man  with  the  aptitude 
should  retain  the  rich,  keen  zest  of  life  to  impart  to 
life's  great  moving  image.  Yet  "this  was  sometime 
a  paradox. "  He  should  be  walled  into  solitude  for  the 
performance  of  his  task,  a  peace  tremulous  with  leaves 
and  birds.  Yet  if  you  cloister  him,  it  will  be  to  the 
deed's  undoing :  for  he  of  all  men  needs  the  view  of 
life  from  mountain  tops,  the  hand-to-hand  encounter 
with  it  in  valleys  and  on  plains.  He  needs  to  know  the 
feel  of  its  big  knocks,  the  smell  of  gardens  and  decay, 
the  depletion  of  hungers,  the  madness  of  every  vehe- 
mence of  thirst.  For  he  cannot  communicate  what 
he  has  not  received,  and  he  has  chosen —  or  God  has 
chosen  for  him,  by  giving  him  the  aptitude — to 
interpret  life  to  you.  And  how  shall  he  interpret 
what  he  does  not  fully  know  ? 

I  have  often  thought  the  man  of  letters  should  have 
two  full  lives :  the  life  of  action  when  he  flings  himself 
about  the  world,  listening,  fighting,  laughing,  crying, 
and  the  life  of  the  scribe  who,  within  his  cell,  scarce 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  371 

has  time  to  hear  the  bee's  murmurous  pollen  talk  out- 
side the  window.  And  the  bee  is  the  simile.  He  flies 
far,  and  he  comes  home  thick  with  honey-dust.  He 
comes  home  and  loses  himself  in  the  community  to 
store  his  load  away.  And  there  it  is,  the  community, 
the  perfect  expression  of  the  common  life.  No  man 
liveth  unto  himself,  not  even  the  privileged  man  of 
letters. 

I  have  told  how  I  learned  at  one  point  in  my  life  that 
poetry  was,  for  me,  the  supreme  reward.  One  step 
led  but  to  another,  and,  that  other  once  attained,  I  was 
telling  myself  that,  after  all,  the  supreme  reward  was 
the  love  of  Ellen  Tracy.  But  now  at  last —  and  I 
have  not  yet  seen  another  step  beyond —  I  believed, 
dear  as  these  goals  must  ever  be,  that  there  was  a 
narrow  land  I  had  to  live  in  and  that  was  mine  inevi- 
tably. Perhaps  it  was  a  road,  for  the  life-long  vision  of 
the  road  was  ever  with  me ;  and  this,  I  saw,  I  had  to 
follow,  not  knowing  where  it  led.  It  was  a  road  where 
neither  poesy  nor  love  could  light  me  in  any  earthly 
sense,  and  it  led  from  my  house  to  the  office  and  back 
to  the  house  again.  I  couldn't  be  out  challenging  the 
world  to  yield  me  lovely  types  for  literature.  I  had 
to  let  life  hammer  at  me  as  I  ran,  and  I  had  no  clois- 
tered seclusion  of  the  mind  to  slip  into  when  I  got  home, 
even  to  tell  how  these  knocks  had  felt.  The  persua- 
sion that  moved  me,  day  by  day,  was  not  the  inner 
persuasion  to  write  verse,  but  to  keep  myself  in  form, 
to  make  my  wife  as  content  as  might  be  and  my  son 


372  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

in  love  with  us.  In  my  first  youth  I  had  followed  the 
call  of  life.  I  had  heard  its  summons  louder  than  the 
printed  word.  Now  I  loved  the  printed  word  most 
dearly,  but  I  was  back  again  at  the  beginning.  Life, 
I  knew,  was  more  than  literature. 

Perhaps  you  wonder  why,  if  I  had  the  aptitude  I 
talk  about,  I  couldn't  write  my  poetry  as  an  avocation. 
If  lines  were  singing  through  my  ears,  it  would  be  a 
child's  task  to  scratch  them  down.  But  this  matter 
of  poetry  is  a  matter  of  emotion,  of  vibration,  of  the 
human  machine  throwing  off  the  waves  of  over-generat- 
ing. And  I  hadn't  any  surplus  energy.  I  was  still 
strong  as  a  man  need  be ;  but  I  had  none  of  that  wild 
life  of  the  brain  that  poets  know.  It  sounds  rather 
sickly  to  say  it,  but  I  was  simply  enduring ;  I  wasn't 
living,  in  any  vivid  sense.  I  wasn't  even  suffering 
vividly.  For  I  had  found  that  if  I  chose  to  disregard 
Ellen  Tracy's  prohibition  and  give  my  mind  full  rein 
and  think  of  her,  I  was  undone.  Out  of  that  mood 
of  wild  revolt  and  quickened  pulses,  I  might  indeed 
have  written  poetry.  But  I  could  not  have  gone  to  the 
office,  a  sane  man,  and  held  my  place,  competing  with 
younger  men  whose  hearts  were  strong  enough  to  race 
toward  tragedy  and  still  maintain  the  serviceable  beat 
of  warm  blood  to  the  brain.  They  had  the  advantage 
of  me  every  time.  They  liked  their  work,  most  of 
them.  They  went  at  it  slap-dash,  life  was  so  new  to 
them,  it  had  so  much  to  tell.  I  had  to  keep  my  face  set 
stiffly  toward  one  goal, — the  " making  good."  To  that 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  373 

end  I  put  Ellen  Tracy  away,  deep  in  my  heart,  as  if 
indeed  she  had  died,  and  I  must  not  dare  to  think  of  her 
until  the  moment  of  my  following.  I  saw  once  a 
hollow  apple  tree  filled  up  with  gravel  and  cement  to 
the  end  that  it  might  bear  more  fruit.  I  saw  it  other 
years,  and  it  did  bloom  and  bear  divinely;  but  I  was 
conscious  of  a  hurt  in  looking  upon  its  patient,  kindly 
health,  for  I  knew  how  heavy  it  was  at  heart.  In 
my  heart  too  was  heaviness  sealed  in;  but  warmth 
also,  sometimes  a  warmth  quite  wonderful  to  feel,  and 
I  knew  what  this  was.  It  was  Ellen  Tracy's  heart, 
sealed  in  and  beating  there.  I  think  there  is  a  pitiful 
misconception  in  our  looking  upon  men  who  have  put 
away  an  image  they  have  worshipped.  It  is  not  that 
they  forget,  but  that  they  cannot  keep  it  before  their 
eyes  and  in  the  exaltation  of  daily  longing,  live.  And 
live  they  must,  unless  they  shirk  the  game. 

So  far  as  literature  went,  a  nobler  passion  had  been 
born  in  me  and  I  could  neither  fulfil  it  nor  return  upon 
the  old  tracks  that  had  given  me  sustenance.  I  could 
no  more  have  written  a  story  of  Little  Italy  now  than 
I  could  have  sat  down  with  an  easy  mind  to  fox-and- 
geese.  And  if  I  could,  the  magazines  would  none  of 
me,  save  for  a  scattering  periodical  now  and  then  that 
could  not  pay  for  the  last  new  thing  in  authors.  Others 
had  arisen,  some  of  them  working  after  my  own  precise 
recipe.  There  were  Armenian  stories  now,  Chinese 
stories;  and  I  knew  from  inner  evidence  that  they 
were  faked.  No  Armenian  could  have  looked  into 


374  MY  LOVE  AND   I 

their  mirror  and  seen  his  own  face;  no  Chinaman. 
New  men  had  simply  hit  on  the  old  tool  and  used  it 
with  the  brilliant  energy  of  youth.  So  the  base  task 
I  would  none  of,  and  the  high  task  would  none  of  me. 
The  Muses  are  jealous  jades.  -  They  will  accept  no 
fragmentary  dole.  You  may  be  earning  bread  for 
little  sons  and  paying  off  unwelcome  cousin  Thomases, 
but  they  make  no  distinction.  You  simply  have  had 
strength  to  crawl  to  the  spring,  or  time  and  money  to 
motor  there,  or  you  have  not.  You've  got  to  be  very 
fascinating  indeed  for  them  to  bring  the  cup  to  you. 
And  I  was  no  young  sprig  of  promise.  I  hadn't  a 
fascination  left. 

As  to  the  matter  of  my  refusing  the  poems  that  came 
to  me  out  of  my  love  for  Ellen  Tracy,  I  cannot  tell 
whether  that  was  a  mistake  or  not.  Perhaps  I  decided 
it  out  of  my  heart,  in  the  first  exaltation  of  finding  and 
losing  her,  and  not  out  of  the  clearness  of  the  mind. 
But  that  was  done  and  over.  The  love  songs  came  no 
more.  And  whether  it  was  right  or  whether  it  was 
wrong,  the  deed  of  a  wastrel  or  the  blind  sacrifice  of  a 
lover  who  must  serve  his  lady,  I  burned  the  novel  once 
called  " Ellen  Tracy"  because  it  was  so  personal  to  her 
and  to  me.  That  she  had  not  required  of  me ;  but  I 
did  it  for  her  sake. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  375 

XXXV 

THE  time  had  gone  on  until  young  Egerton  clattered 
in  one  day  and  threw  his  skates  down  and  announced 
that  he'd  begun  algebra.  I  was  standing  in  the  dining 
room  doorway,  talking  to  Mildred  about  the  price 
of  coal,  and  she  was  sitting  at  her  desk  very  much  as 
she  had  been  that  day  at  the  Port  when  I  had  learned 
my  exile  from  her.  Mildred  had  lost  her  spring-tide 
face.  She  had  faded,  not  to  the  beauty  of  the  petal  that 
withers  in  the  sun,  but  to  a  spiritless  forecast  of  old 
age.  I  have  seen  dropped  larkspur  petals  that  are  like 
blue  jewels,  almost  transcending  the  living  flower,  and 
I  have  seen  the  faces  of  women  where  wifehood  and 
motherhood  have  burnt  into  a  white  ash  of  ethereal 
loveliness.  Yet  what  bright  coals  are  glowing  under- 
neath that  veil!  There  was,  I  thought  suddenly,  in 
one  of  the  moments  of  bitter  truth  we  tell  ourselves, 
nothing  in  her  face — nothing  perhaps  but  discontent. 
I  had  been  able  to  put  nothing  into  it,  and  I  could  draw 
nothing  out. 

I  gave  young  Egerton  a  little  push  toward  her. 

"Go  and  tell  her,"  I  said.  "I  don't  even  know 
what  algebra  is.  Don't  talk  to  me  about  it.  It  makes 
me  shy." 

He  went,  hooting  at  my  bluff:  for  if  there  was  one 
person  who  knew  everything  in  the  heavens  above  and 
the  earth  beneath,  from  the  way  the  fire  engines  go 
to  the  deeds  of  the  Greek  heroes,  that  person,  in  the 


376  MY  LOVE  AND  I 

eyes  of  young  Egerton  Redfield,  was  I.    He  didn't 
know  how  hard  I'd  had  to  cram  for  him. 

His  mother  felt  knowingly  at  a  button  coming  loose, 
and  turned  him  about  in  the  salutary  way  mothers  have, 
and  as  I  stood  there  watching  them,  my  eyes  filled 
achingly.  Perhaps  they  did  it  the  more  easily  because 
I  had  seen  Ellen  Tracy's  face  that  morning,  and  it  was 
wet  with  tears.  I  had  been  to  aunt  Patten's  funeral, 
unsummoned,  but  because  I  had  to  go,  and  I  had  seen 
my  beautiful  lady,  and  across  her  tear- wet  face  there  had 
run  a  little  smile  at  sight  of  me.  That  smile  seemed 
to  have  broken  some  of  the  bands  about  my  heart.  I 
had  come  home  with  my  eyes  opened  to  the  secrets 
of  other  faces,  and  my  heart  all  warm  to  give  ease  to 
other  hearts.  As  I  stood  there,  my  mind  ran  back 
over  the  days  since  I  had  spoken  with  Ellen  Tracy: 
for  the  last  time  had  been  that  night  down  at  Hopeful 
Sands  when  she  had  laid  upon  me  her  dear,  unreasoning 
will  to  keep  on  being  "  splendid."  In  that  time  Mil- 
dred had  withered,  Mary  had  turned  into  a  lodging- 
house  keeper —  for  she  got  rheumatism  and  her  fingers 
wouldn't  serve  her  at  the  typewriter — Blake  looked  like 
a  wreck,  but  still  of  noble  dignity  (and  now  nobody 
bought  his  poetry  at  all,  it  was  so  full  of  mystic  won- 
ders), and  cousin  Thomas,  indescribably  seedy,  had  set 
up  an  office  with  the  name  of  a  South  American  mine 
on  the  door,  and  sat  there,  being  persistent,  and  dread- 
ing, I  fully  believed,  to  see  my  checks  come  in,  as  a 
man  dreads  retributive  lightning. 


MY  LOVE  AND  I  377 

I  didn't  know  how  I  looked,  myself.  I  hadn't  any 
time  for  mirrors.  I  knew  I  had  done  two  novels  of  the 
way  life  seemed  to  me  down  town,  and  nobody  was 
reading  them  because  they  were  " unpleasant."  I  knew 
I  had  in  my  desk  a  book  of  sonnets  that  told,  in  an 
abstract  way,  what  I  thought  I  believed  about  the 
great  game  of  life.  I  meant  to  leave  the  sonnets  there, 
and  after  I  was  dead  my  son  could  do  what  he  liked 
about  publishing  them.  They  bore  testimony  to  what 
I  had  learned :  but  now  as  I  dwelt  on  Mildred's  withered 
face  and  remembered  the  sweet  bloom  of  Ellen  Tracy's, 
I  thought  I  had  one  more  sonnet  to  write.  For  stronger 
than  any  impulse  in  me  that  day,  stronger  than  my 
answering  joy  at  sight  of  Ellen  Tracy's  face  and  its 
subtile  assurance  that  she  had  not  forgotten,  stronger 
than  my  ever-during  belief  in  my  eternal  tryst  with  her, 
or  my  satisfaction  in  my  son's  stout  legs  and  hard 
cheeks  and  his  assault  upon  algebra,  stronger  than  all 
these  was  my  sudden  sorrow  that  Mildred  was  not 
happy.  What  could  I  bring  her  to  call  light  and  color 
into  that  dull  face  ?  Not  man's  love  for  woman :  my 
love  was  given  away.  And  if  it  had  not  been,  she  did 
not  want  it  of  me.  There  was  nothing  to  offer  her  but 
the  tender  compassion  that  responds  to  every  call, 
the  world-sorrow  that  wakes  at  sight  of  the  world-pain. 

"Don't  you  think  that's  wonderful?"  I  said  to  her, 
and  she  looked  up  at  me  and  her  face  quickened  in 
an  unexpected  way,  perhaps  at  the  quickening  of  mine. 
"All  this  algebra  business?  Don't  you  think  it's 
wonderful  —  Little  Mother  ?  " 


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Van  Cleve 

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obliged,  at  the  age  of  twenty,  to  support  a  family  of  foolish,  good-hearted, 
ill-balanced  women,  and  one  shiftless,  pompous  old  man  —  his  grand- 
father, aunt,  cousin,  and  uncle.  Out  of  this  situation  the  story  grows 
which  will  be  welcome  to  the  many  admirers  of  Mrs.  Watts. 

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boyhood.  Without  such  a  memory  he  could  never  write  as  he 
does  of  the  charmed  circle  of  youth,  into  which  no  man  may  enter, 
no  matter  how  well  he  may  appreciate  the  faiths  and  superstitions 
of  its  members.  The  book  has  humor  and  incident,  but  its  charm 
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"BARBARA'S"  New  Story 
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succeeds  as  do  few  novelists.  Her  new  novel  is  simply  a  love 
story,  full  of  the  vivid  character  sketches  for  which  she  is  so  well 
known,  and  more  rapid  in  action  perhaps  than  anything  she  has 
ever  written.  It  concerns  the  endeavors  of  a  man  and  wife  to 
mold  the  careers  of  their  three  children.  How  the  individual 
instincts  of  the  children  turn  them  from  the  ways  planned  for  them 
by  their  forebears,  and,  how  they  love,  and  in  the  end,  prove  their 
right  of  choice,  is  the  backbone  of  the  story. 


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the  career  of  a  country  doctor  who  has  lost  faith  in  life  but  not  in  ideals.  Inci- 
dentally the  author  has  interpreted  the  new  spirit  of  American  childhood  in  its 
relation  to  the  miracles  and  legends  and  lore  of  other  lands  and  older  times, 
which  have  through  the  centuries  gathered  about  the  great  Christmas  festival 
of  the  Nativity."  —  New  York  Times. 

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in  this  work,  namely,  a  description  of  Kentucky  and  the  blue-grass  farms  as 
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work,  will  earn  a  high  place  in  fiction.  It  is  good  and  clean  and  provides  a 
vacation  from  the  cares  of  the  hour.  It  resembles  a  Chinese  play,  because  it 
begins  with  the  hero's  boyhood,  describes  his  long,  busy  life,  and  ends  with  his 
death.  Its  tone  is  often  religious,  never  flippant,  and  one  of  its  best  assets  is 
its  glowing  descriptions  of  the  calm,  serene  beauties  of  nature.  Its  moral  is 
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try. ...  It  is  picturesque,  racy,  and,  above  all,  it  is  original."  —  The  Philadel- 
phia Press. 

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throughout  a  profound  study  of  a  fascinating  young  American  woman.  It 
is  frankly  a  modern  love  story. 

11  The  most  thorough  and  artistic  work  the  author  has  yet  turned  out.  A  very 
interesting  story  and  a  faithful  picture  of  character  .  .  .  one  that  will  give  rise 
to  much  discussion." — New  York  Sun. 

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in  American  novels  for  a  long  time  past."  —  The  Outlook. 

The  Celebrity     An  Episode 

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...  It  is  the  purest,  keenest  fun."  —  Chicago  Inter-  Ocean. 

Richard  Carvel  illustrated 

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ness  of  spirit,  it  has  seldom,  if  ever,  been  surpassed  by  an  American  romance." 

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The   Crossing  Illustrated 

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mental incident,  yet  faithful  to  historical  fact  both  in  detail  and  in  spirit." 

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The    Crisis  v       Illustrated 

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bitterness,  the  intense  patriotism  of  both  parties,  are  shown  understandingly." 

—  Evening  Telegraph,  Philadelphia. 

Illustrated 

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Recent  Works  by  Jack  London 
SOUTH  SEA  TALES 

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and  comings  unknown,  would  prove  that  he  had  been  on  the 
ground  and  had  himself  taken  part  in  the  combats,  physical  and 
mental,  which  he  describes.  The  present  volume  is  a  collection  of 
vivid  tales,  which,  both  in  their  subject  matter  and  in  their  setting, 
give  the  author  free  hand. 

THE   CRUISE  OF  THE   SNARK 

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Mrs.  London  set  forth  to  sail  around  the  world.  Mr.  London  has 
told  the  story  in  a  fashion  to  bring  out  all  the  excitement  of  the 
cruise,  its  fun  and  exhilaration  as  well  as  its  moments  and  days  of 
breathless  danger. 

ADVENTURE 

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While  there  is  something  doing  from  first  to  last,  the  reader  is  not 
conscious  of  that  straining  after  effect  which  is  evident  in  so  many 
stories  of  rapid  and  exciting  plot. 

WHEN  GOD  LAUGHS 

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A  remarkably  stirring  volume  into  which  have  entered  all  of  th« 
elements  which  have  gone  to  make  its  author  one  of  the  most 
widely  read  novelists  of  his  time.  To  depict  graphically  "the 
struggles  of  strong  men  in  a  world  of  strong  men,"  a  reviewer  once 
declared  to  be  Mr.  London's  special  province.  Certainly  it  is  the 
province  which  he  has  selected  for  himself  in  this  book.  "  When 
God  Laughs,"  the  initial  tale,  deals  with  a  novel  conception  of  the 
love  of  man  and  wife.  What  this  love  is,  and  what  it  brings  to 
pass,  make  a  yarn  which  is  as  finished  and  complete  a  piece  of 
work  as  one  often  finds  in  the  much  discussed  short-story  field. 


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